The women's 400 metre freestyle event at the 1952 Olympic Games took place between 31 July and 2 August at the Swimming Stadium. This

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

event used

freestyle swimming Freestyle is a category of swimming competition, defined by the rules of the International Swimming Federation (FINA), in which competitors are subject to a few limited restrictions on their swimming stroke. Freestyle races are the most commo ...

, which means that the method of the stroke is not regulated (unlike backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly events). Nearly all swimmers use the

front crawl The front crawl or forward crawl, also known as the Australian crawl or American crawl, is a swimming stroke usually regarded as the fastest of the four front primary strokes. As such, the front crawl stroke is almost universally used during a f ...

or a variant of that stroke. Because an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of sixteen lengths of the pool.

Medalists

Results

Heats

Sixteen fastest swimmers advanced to semi-finals. Heat 1 Heat 2 Heat 3 Heat 4 Heat 5

Semifinals

Eight fastest swimmers advanced to the finals. Heat 1 Heat 2

Final

Key: OR = Olympic record

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Swimming At The 1952 Summer Olympics - Women's 400 Metre Freestyle Women's freestyle 400 metre 1952 in women's swimming Women's events at the 1952 Summer Olympics