Swimming at the 1976 Summer Olympics – Men's 200 metre freestyle

Men's 200 metre freestyle at the Games of the XXII Olympiad
Medalists
Bruce Furniss  United States John Naber  United States Jim Montgomery  United States

The men's 200 metre freestyle event at the 1976 Olympic Games took place July 19. This swimming event used freestyle swimming, which means that the method of the stroke is not regulated (unlike backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly events). Nearly all swimmers use the front crawl or a variant of that stroke. Because an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of four lengths of the pool.

Medalists

Gold	Bruce Furniss  United States
Silver	John Naber  United States
Bronze	Jim Montgomery  United States

Results

Heats

Heat 1

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Sergey Koplyakov	Soviet Union	1:53.44
2	René van der Kuil	Netherlands	1:55.59
3	Bengt Gingsjö	Sweden	1:56.31
4	Fritz Warncke	Norway	1:57.59
5	Tsuyoshi Yanagidate	Japan	1:58.04
6	Luis Goicoechea	Venezuela	1:59.68
7	Kris Sumono	Indonesia	2:01.12

Heat 2

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Andrey Bogdanov	Soviet Union	1:52.71	Q, OR
2	Brian Brinkley	Great Britain	1:53.07
3	David López-Zubero	Spain	1:54.88
4	Georgios Karpouzis	Greece	1:59.25
5	Eduardo Pérez	Mexico	1:59.53
6	Tomas Becerra	Colombia	2:00.72

Heat 3

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Klaus Steinbach	West Germany	1:51.41	Q, OR
2	Marcello Guarducci	Italy	1:53.72
3	Roberto Pangaro	Italy	1:55.30
4	Werner Lampe	West Germany	1:56.01
5	Kevin Williamson	Ireland	2:00.08
6	Nikolay Ganev	Bulgaria	2:00.54
7	Frank Richardson	Nicaragua	2:12.33

Heat 4

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Andrey Krylov	Soviet Union	1:51.42	Q
2	Graham Windeatt	Australia	1:54.35
3	James Hett	Canada	1:55.58
4	Ali Gharbi	Tunisia	1:55.82
5	Steven Newkirk	Virgin Islands	1:59.95
6	José Pereira	Portugal	2:03.03

Heat 5

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Peter Nocke	West Germany	1:52.16	Q
2	Gordon Downie	Great Britain	1:52.47	Q
3	Steve Badger	Canada	1:53.86
4	Andre in het Veld	Netherlands	1:57.60
5	John McConnochie	New Zealand	1:57.77
6	Mark Crocker	Hong Kong	2:00.81
7	Paulo Frischknecht	Portugal	2:02.65

Heat 6

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Jim Montgomery	United States	1:51.77	Q
2	Bill Sawchuk	Canada	1:54.07
3	Rainer Strohbach	East Germany	1:55.25
4	Paolo Revelli	Italy	1:57.25
5	Andy Knowles	Bahamas	2:00.18
6	Lutz Löscher	East Germany	2:01.00
7	Gianni Versari	Panama	2:02.25

Heat 7

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	John Naber	United States	1:52.78	Q
2	Jorge Delgado, Jr.	Ecuador	1:54.23
3	Frank Pfütze	East Germany	1:55.57
4	Alan McClatchey	Great Britain	1:55.84
5	Anders Bellbring	Sweden	1:57.20
6	Francisco Cañales	Puerto Rico	1:59.62
7	Petar Georgiev	Bulgaria	2:00.70
8	Patrick Novaretti	Monaco	2:04.29

Heat 8

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Bruce Furniss	United States	1:50.93	Q, OR
2	Mark Kerry	Australia	1:54.86
3	Peter Dawson	Australia	1:55.16
4	Peter Pettersson	Sweden	1:56.51
5	Guillermo García	Mexico	1:58.20
6	Sigurður Ólafsson	Iceland	2:01.18
7	Gerardo Rosario	Philippines	2:02.81

Final

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
	Bruce Furniss	United States	1:50.29	WR
	John Naber	United States	1:50.50
	Jim Montgomery	United States	1:50.58
4	Andrey Krylov	Soviet Union	1:50.73
5	Klaus Steinbach	West Germany	1:51.09
6	Peter Nocke	West Germany	1:51.71
7	Gordon Downie	Great Britain	1:52.78
8	Andrey Bogdanov	Soviet Union	1:53.33

Key: WR = World record