Swimming at the 2000 Summer Olympics – Men's 200 metre freestyle

Men's 200 metre freestyle
at the Games of the XXVII Olympiad
Gold medalist Pieter van den Hoogenband (2008)
VenueSydney International Aquatic Centre
DatesSeptember 17, 2000 (heats &
semifinals)
September 18, 2000 (final)
Competitors51 from 44 nations
Winning time1:45.35 =WR
Medalists
1st place, gold medalist(s) Pieter van den Hoogenband
 Netherlands
2nd place, silver medalist(s) Ian Thorpe
 Australia
3rd place, bronze medalist(s) Massimiliano Rosolino
 Italy
← 1996
2004 →
Swimming at the
2000 Summer Olympics
Freestyle
50 mmenwomen
100 mmenwomen
200 mmenwomen
400 mmenwomen
800 mwomen
1500 mmen
Backstroke
100 mmenwomen
200 mmenwomen
Breaststroke
100 mmenwomen
200 mmenwomen
Butterfly
100 mmenwomen
200 mmenwomen
Individual medley
200 mmenwomen
400 mmenwomen
Freestyle relay
4 × 100 mmenwomen
4 × 200 mmenwomen
Medley relay
4 × 100 mmenwomen

The men's 200 metre freestyle event at the 2000 Summer Olympics took place on 17–18 September at the Sydney International Aquatic Centre in Sydney, Australia.[1] There were 51 competitors from 44 nations, with each nation having up to two swimmers (a limit in place since 1984).[2]

Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband edged out Australia's top favorite Ian Thorpe on the final lap to claim a gold medal in the event. Stunning a massive home crowd, he touched the wall first in 1:45.35 to match his own world record from the semifinals.[3][4] As a result of starting harder than usual, Thorpe ended up only with a silver in 1:45.83, while Italy's Massimiliano Rosolino added a bronze to his hardware from the 400 m freestyle in a time 1:46.65.[5][6] The medals were the first in the men's 200 metre freestyle for both the Netherlands and Italy.

U.S. swimmer Josh Davis missed the podium by six hundredths of a second (0.06), finishing with a new American record of 1:46.73. Davis was followed in fifth and sixth by British duo Paul Palmer (1:47.95) and James Salter (1:48.74).[7] Canada's Rick Say (1:48.76) and another Aussie Grant Hackett (1:49.46) closed out the field.[6]

Earlier in the semifinals, Van den Hoogenband blasted a new world record of 1:45.35, slashing 0.16 seconds off the mark set by Thorpe from the Australian trials. One heat later, Thorpe powered home with a second-fastest time of 1:45.37, but missed taking the record back by two hundredths of a second (0.02).[4] He also erased Yevgeny Sadovyi's 1992 Olympic record by 0.14 seconds to pick up a top seed from the prelims (1:46.56).[8][9]

Background

This was the 11th 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.[2]

Four of the 8 finalists from the 1996 Games returned: fourth-place finisher Pieter van den Hoogenband of the Netherlands, sixth-place finisher Massimiliano Rosolino of Italy, seventh-place finisher Josh Davis of the United States, and eighth-place finisher Paul Palmer of Great Britain. Rosolino had taken silver at the 1998 World Championships, with van den Hoogenband bronze. Australia's Michael Klim had won those World Championships, but the Australian team in Sydney was Grant Hackett and world record holder and home country favourite Ian Thorpe.[2]

Andorra, Belarus, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, India, Lithuania, and Trinidad and Tobago each made their debut in the event. Australia made its 11th appearance, the only nation to have competed in all prior editions of the event.

Competition format

The competition altered the format that had been used since 1984. The tournament expanded to 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. Instead of having the top 16 swimmers divided into a Final A for the top 8 and Final B for 9th through 16th, as was done in from 1984 to 1996, the 2000 competition added semifinals. The top 16 swimmers from the heats competed in the new semifinals. The top 8 semifinalists advanced to the final (there was no longer a classification final for 9th through 16th). 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.

Records

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

World record  Ian Thorpe (AUS) 1:45.51 Sydney, Australia 15 May 2000 [10]
Olympic record  Yevgeny Sadovyi (EUN) 1:46.70 Barcelona, Spain 27 July 1992 [10]

The following new world and Olympic records were set during this competition.

Date Event Swimmer Nation Time Record
17 September Heat 7 Ian Thorpe  Australia 1:46.56 OR
17 September Semifinal 1 Pieter van den Hoogenband  Netherlands 1:45.35 WR
18 September Final Pieter van den Hoogenband  Netherlands 1:45.35 =WR

Schedule

All times are Australian Eastern Standard Time (UTC+10)

Date Time Round
Sunday, 17 September 2000 10:25
19:14		 Heats
Semifinals
Monday, 18 September 2000 19:11 Final

Results

Heats

The top 16 across all heats advanced to the semifinals.[10]

Rank Heat Lane Swimmer Nation Time Notes
1 7 4 Ian Thorpe  Australia 1:46.56 Q, OR
2 6 4 Pieter van den Hoogenband  Netherlands 1:46.71 Q
3 7 5 Massimiliano Rosolino  Italy 1:47.37 Q
4 5 4 Josh Davis  United States 1:48.43 Q
5 7 6 Rick Say  Canada 1:48.62 Q
6 5 3 James Salter  Great Britain 1:48.77 Q
7 6 2 Igor Koleda  Belarus 1:49.01 Q, NR
8 7 3 Scott Goldblatt  United States 1:49.05 Q
9 6 5 Grant Hackett  Australia 1:49.23 Q
10 5 8 Örn Arnarson  Iceland 1:49.78 Q, NR
11 5 5 Paul Palmer  Great Britain 1:49.83 Q
12 5 7 Stefan Herbst  Germany 1:49.84 Q
13 7 2 Andrey Kapralov  Russia 1:49.92 Q
14 6 7 Stefan Pohl  Germany 1:50.07 Q
15 6 6 Béla Szabados  Hungary 1:50.10 Q
16 5 1 Attila Zubor  Hungary 1:50.11 Q
17 7 8 Dragoş Coman  Romania 1:50.20
18 7 1 Květoslav Svoboda  Czech Republic 1:50.29
19 6 8 Martijn Zuijdweg  Netherlands 1:50.37
20 5 6 Jacob Carstensen  Denmark 1:50.41
21 5 2 Mark Johnston  Canada 1:50.92
22 4 5 Arūnas Savickas  Lithuania 1:52.02
23 2 5 Mark Chay  Singapore 1:52.22 NR
24 4 7 Rostyslav Svanidze  Ukraine 1:52.35
25 4 6 Ricardo Pedroso  Portugal 1:52.60
26 4 1 Mark Kwok Kin Ming  Hong Kong 1:52.71
27 3 5 Damian Alleyne  Barbados 1:52.75
28 4 4 Dmitri Kuzmin  Kyrgyzstan 1:52.93 NR
29 3 2 Woo Chul  South Korea 1:53.02
30 3 3 Javier Díaz  Mexico 1:53.20
31 4 3 Andrei Cecan  Moldova 1:53.23
32 3 1 Jonathan Duncan  New Zealand 1:53.27
33 4 2 Rodrigo Castro  Brazil 1:53.65
34 3 4 Fernando Jácome  Colombia 1:54.17
35 3 7 Francisco Paez  Venezuela 1:54.32
36 6 3 Dimitrios Manganas  Greece 1:54.36
37 2 2 Allen Ong  Malaysia 1:54.53
38 3 8 Wu Nien-pin  Chinese Taipei 1:54.58
39 2 7 George Gleason  Virgin Islands 1:54.64
40 4 8 Glen Walshaw  Zimbabwe 1:54.70 NR
41 2 3 Nikola Kalabić  FR Yugoslavia 1:54.75
42 2 8 Aytekin Mindan  Turkey 1:54.86
43 3 6 Vicha Ratanachote  Thailand 1:54.91
44 1 3 Oleg Tsvetkovskiy  Uzbekistan 1:54.93
45 2 1 Carl Probert  Fiji 1:54.98
46 1 5 Mahmoud El-Wany  Egypt 1:55.19
47 1 4 Sebastien Paddington  Trinidad and Tobago 1:55.40
48 2 4 Andrey Kvassov  Kazakhstan 1:55.72
49 2 6 Alexandros Aresti  Cyprus 1:57.54
50 1 6 Hakimuddin Shabbir Habibulla  India 1:58.35
51 1 2 Santiago Deu  Andorra 1:59.31
— 6 3 Ryk Neethling  South Africa DNS
7 7 Dmitry Chernyshov  Russia DNS

Semifinals

Rank Heat Lane Swimmer Nation Time Notes
1 1 4 Pieter van den Hoogenband  Netherlands 1:45.35 Q, WR
2 2 4 Ian Thorpe  Australia 1:45.37 Q, OC
3 2 5 Massimiliano Rosolino  Italy 1:46.60 Q
4 1 5 Josh Davis  United States 1:47.06 Q, AM
5 2 3 Rick Say  Canada 1:48.50 Q
6 1 3 James Salter  Great Britain 1:48.64 Q
7 2 2 Grant Hackett  Australia 1:48.76 Q
8 2 7 Paul Palmer  Great Britain 1:48.79 Q
9 1 6 Scott Goldblatt  United States 1:48.83
10 2 1 Andrey Kapralov  Russia 1:49.04
11 2 8 Béla Szabados  Hungary 1:49.36
12 2 6 Igor Koleda  Belarus 1:49.52
13 1 7 Stefan Herbst  Germany 1:49.72
14 1 8 Attila Zubor  Hungary 1:49.87
15 1 2 Örn Arnarson  Iceland 1:50.41
16 1 1 Stefan Pohl  Germany 1:50.56

Final

Rank Lane Swimmer Nation Time Notes
1st place, gold medalist(s) 4 Pieter van den Hoogenband  Netherlands 1:45.35 =WR
2nd place, silver medalist(s) 5 Ian Thorpe  Australia 1:45.83
3rd place, bronze medalist(s) 3 Massimiliano Rosolino  Italy 1:46.65
4 6 Josh Davis  United States 1:46.73 AM
5 8 Paul Palmer  Great Britain 1:47.95
6 7 James Salter  Great Britain 1:48.74
7 2 Rick Say  Canada 1:48.76
8 1 Grant Hackett  Australia 1:49.46

References

  1. ^ "Swimming schedule". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 14 September 2000. Retrieved 14 May 2013.
  2. ^ a b c "200 metres Freestyle, Men". Olympedia. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  3. ^ "Flying Dutchman". Sports Illustrated. CNN. 18 September 2000. Retrieved 23 May 2013.
  4. ^ a b "Dutchman ties own world record". ESPN. 18 September 2000. Retrieved 23 May 2013.
  5. ^ Morrissey, Rick (19 September 2000). "Thorpedo A Dud, At Least This Time". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 23 May 2013.
  6. ^ a b Whitten, Phillip (18 September 2000). "Olympic Day 3 Finals (100 Breast, 100 Back M, 100 Back W, 200 Free)". Swimming World Magazine. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 23 May 2013.
  7. ^ Hayward, Paul (19 September 2000). "Swimming: Thorpe stands tall as a nation is silenced". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 23 May 2013.
  8. ^ Whitten, Phillip (17 September 2000). "Olympic Prelims: Day Two". Swimming World Magazine. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 23 May 2013.
  9. ^ Morris, Jim (16 September 2000). "Calgary's Curtis Myden qualifies for Olympic finals of 400 IM". Canoe.ca. Archived from the original on 28 June 2013. Retrieved 23 May 2013.{cite news}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  10. ^ a b c "Sydney 2000: Swimming – Men's 200m Freestyle Heats" (PDF). Sydney 2000. LA84 Foundation. pp. 128–130. Retrieved 13 May 2013.

External links