Swimming at the 2004 Summer Olympics – Men's 200 metre freestyle

This was the 12th appearance of the 200 metre freestyle event. It was first contested in 1900. It would be contested a second time, though at 220 yards, in 1904. After that, the event did not return until 1968; since then, it has been on the programme at every Summer Games.^[1]

Four of the 8 finalists from the 2000 Games returned: gold medalist Pieter van den Hoogenband of the Netherlands, silver medalist Ian Thorpe of Australia, seventh-place finisher Rick Say of Canada, and eighth-place finisher Grant Hackett of Australia. Thorpe and van den Hoogenband had finished first and second, respectively, at both the 2001 and 2003 World Championships. American Klete Keller had taken third in 2001, with Hackett earning bronze in 2003. Added to this already strong field was Michael Phelps—an individual medley specialist who had set an American record in the 200 metre freestyle as the lead leg at the 2003 World Championships (not swimming the individual event there) and beaten Keller by six-tenths of a second at the U.S. trials.^[1]

The Cayman Islands, Chile, Georgia, Latvia, Macedonia, Morocco, and Serbia and Montenegro each made their debut in the event. Australia made its 12th appearance, the only nation to have competed in all prior editions of the event.

The competition followed the format established in 2000, with three rounds: heats, semifinals, and a final. The advancement rule followed the format introduced in 1952. A swimmer's place in the heat was not used to determine advancement; instead, the fastest times from across all heats in a round were used. The top 16 swimmers from the heats advanced to the semifinals. The top 8 semifinalists advanced to the final. Swim-offs were used as necessary to break ties.

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.

Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows:

World record	Ian Thorpe (AUS)	1:44.06	Fukuoka, Japan	25 July 2001
Olympic record	Pieter van den Hoogenband (NED)	1:45.35	Sydney, Australia	18 September 2000

The following records were established during the competition:

Date	Event	Swimmer	Nation	Time	Record
16 August	Final	Ian Thorpe	Australia	1:44.71	OR

All times are Greece Standard Time (UTC+2)

• Official Olympic Report