The men's 400 metre individual

medley Medley or Medleys may refer to: Sports *Medley swimming, races requiring multiple swimming styles * Medley relay races at track meets Music *Medley (music), multiple pieces strung together People *Medley (surname), list of people with this nam ...

event at the

1972 Summer Olympics The 1972 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad () and commonly known as Munich 1972 (german: München 1972), was an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from 26 August to 11 September 1972. ...

took place August 30. This swimming event used medley swimming. Because an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of eight lengths of the pool. The first two lengths were swum using the

butterfly stroke The butterfly (colloquially shortened to fly) is a List of swimming styles, swimming stroke swum on the chest, with both arms moving symmetrically, accompanied by the butterfly kick (also known as the "dolphin kick"). While other styles like ...

, the second pair with the backstroke, the third pair of lengths in

breaststroke Breaststroke is a swimming style in which the swimmer is on their chest and the torso does not rotate. It is the most popular recreational style due to the swimmer's head being out of the water a large portion of the time, and that it can be s ...

, and the final two were

freestyle Freestyle may refer to: Brands * Reebok Freestyle, a women's athletic shoe * Ford Freestyle, an SUV automobile * Coca-Cola Freestyle, a vending machine * ICD Freestyle, a paintball marker * Abbott FreeStyle, a blood glucose monitor by Abbott La ...

. Unlike other events using freestyle, swimmers could not use butterfly, backstroke, or breaststroke for the freestyle leg; most swimmers use the front crawl in freestyle events.

Final with controversial margin

The final was won by Gunnar Larsson, who succeeded over second-placed

Tim McKee Alexander Timothy McKee (born March 14, 1953) is an American former competition swimmer and three-time Olympic silver medalist. He was a successful medley and backstroke swimmer, and is often remembered for being a part of the closest Olympic ...

by two thousandths of a second. This margin in effect brought about a change in the competition, so that no swimming competition henceforward would have to be decided by a margin less than a hundredth of a second."Munich 1972."
Swedish Olympic Committee, 2008. Retrieved 2012-05-01.

Medalists

Results

Heats

Heat 1 Heat 2 Heat 3 Heat 4 Heat 5

Final

Key: OR = Olympic record

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swimming At The 1972 Summer Olympics - Men's 400 Metre Individual Medley Men's Individual Medley 400 metre Men's events at the 1972 Summer Olympics