Swimming at the 1988 Summer Olympics – Men's 50 metre freestyle

Swimming events at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Freestyle
50 m		men		women
100 m		men		women
200 m		men		women
400 m		men		women
800 m				women
1500 m		men
Backstroke
100 m		men		women
200 m		men		women
Breaststroke
100 m		men		women
200 m		men		women
Butterfly
100 m		men		women
200 m		men		women
Individual medley
200 m		men		women
400 m		men		women
Freestyle relay
4×100 m		men		women
4×200 m		men
Medley relay
4×100 m		men		women

The men's 50 metre freestyle event at the 1988 Olympic Games took place September 24. This swimming event is 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 consists entirely of a single length of the pool.

This was the first time the event was swum at the Olympics.

Contents 1 Medalists 2 Records 3 Preliminary heats 3.1 Swim-off 4 Finals 4.1 A final 4.2 B final 5 References

Medalists

Gold	Matt Biondi United States (USA)
Silver	Tom Jager United States (USA)
Bronze	Gennady Prigoda Soviet Union (URS)

Records

The existing World and Olympic records at the time of the competition were:

World record	Peter Williams (RSA)	22.18	Indianapolis, IN, USA	10 April 1988
Olympic record	Not held before 1988	-	-	-

The following records were established during the competition:

Date	Round	Name	Nationality	Time	WR	OR
September 24	Final	Matt Biondi	United States	22.14	WR	OR

Preliminary heats

Rank	Heat (Heat Place)	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	8 (1)		Matt Biondi	United States	22.39	q-A OR
2	9 (1)		Gennadiy Prigoda	Soviet Union	22.57	q-A
3	7 (1)		Dano Halsall	Switzerland	22.61	q-A OR
4	9 (2)		Tom Jager	United States	22.61	q-A
5	7 (2)		Vladimir Tkacenko	Soviet Union	22.81	q-A
6	7 (3)		Frank Henter	West Germany	22.98	q-A
7	8 (2)		Andrew Baildon	Australia	22.99	q-A
8	8 (3)		Stefan Volery	Switzerland	23.04	q-A
9	9 (3)		Peng Siong Ang	Singapore	23.08	q-B
10	8 (4)		Per Johansson	Sweden	23.12	q-B
11	7 (4)		Stéphan Caron	France	23.22	q-B Scratched finals
12	9 (4)		Stephen Gusgen	West Germany	23.22	q-B
13	9 (5=)		Shen Jianqiang	China	23.41	q-B
13	9 (5=)		Tzvetan Golomeev	Bulgaria	23.41	q-B Scratched finals
15	4 (1)		Mark Andrews	Canada	23.44	q-B OR
16	8 (5)		Goran Titus	Sweden	23.44	q-B
17	8 (6)		Hilton Woods	Netherlands Antilles	23.46
18	9 (7)		Feng Qiangbiao	China	23.47	Won Swim-off Scratched finals
18	6 (1)		Christophe Kalfayan	France	23.47
20	7 (5)		Vagn Hogholm	Denmark	23.50
21	9 (8)		Hans Kroes	Sweden	23.50
22	7 (6)		Mark Foster	Great Britain	23.51
23	7 (7)		Petr Kladiva	Czechoslovakia	23.53
24	5 (1)		Manuel Guzman	Puerto Rico	23.61
25	6 (2)		Mike Fibbens	Great Britain	23.67
26	8 (7)		Peter Rohde	Denmark	23.70
27	6 (3)		Tom Stachewicz	Australia	23.72
28	6 (4)		Yves Clausse	Luxembourg	23.99
29			Rodrigo González	Mexico	24.01
30			Paulo Trindade	Portugal	24.02
31			Sergio Esteves	Portugal	24.24
32			Garvin Ferguson	Bahamas	24.25
33			José Moreira	Brazil	24.26
33			Joseph Buhain	Philippines	24.26
35			Li Khai-kam	Hong Kong	24.30
36			Markus Opartril	Austria	24.32
37			Jorge Fernandes	Brazil	24.40
38			Alexander Pilhatsch	Austria	24.42
39			Michael Wright	Hong Kong	24.47
40			Magnus Olfsson	Iceland	24.50
41			Richard Bera	Indonesia	24.63
42			Mohamed Elazoui	Egypt	24.64
42			Murat Tahir	Turkey	24.64
44			Hans Foerster	Virgin Islands	24.72
45			Urbano Zea	Mexico	24.86
45			Jin Gee Oon	Singapore	24.86
47			Ronald Pickard	Virgin Islands	25.01
48			Mohamed Hassan	Egypt	25.11
49			Paul Yelle	Barbados	25.15
50			Hakan Eskioglu	Turkey	25.24
51			Chi-Li Chiang	Chinese Taipei	25.26
52			Vaughan Smith	Zimbabwe	25.29
53			Graham Thompson	Zimbabwe	25.38
54			Kwang-Sun Song	South Korea	25.40
55			Wirmandi Sugriat	Indonesia	25.55
56			Bruno Ndiaye	Senegal	25.63
57			Warren Sorby	Fiji	25.64
58			Pablo Barahona	Honduras	25.79
59			Sergio Faftine	Mozambique	25.97
60			Plutaro Castellanos	Honduras	26.00
61			Hasan Alshammari	Kuwait	26.27
62			Jason Chute	Fiji	26.46
63			Michele Piva	San Marino	26.60
63			Ahmad Faraj	United Arab Emirates	26.60
65			Trevor Ncala	Swaziland	26.88
66			Filippo Piva	San Marino	26.96
67			Amine El Domyati	Lebanon	27.34
68			Mubarak Farajbilal	United Arab Emirates	27.60
69			Yul Mark Du Pont	Swaziland	27.93
--			Pedro Lima	Angola	DQ
--			Mouhamedou Diop	Senegal	DQ

Key: DQ = Disqualified, OR = Olympic record, q-A = Qualified in a final, q-B = Qualified in b final

Swim-off

(For 18^th & 19^th position)

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Feng Qiangbiao	China	23.28
2	Christophe Kalfayan	France	23.37

Finals

A final

Place	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
		Matt Biondi	United States	22.14	WR[1]
		Tom Jager	United States	22.36
		Gennadiy Prigoda	Soviet Union	22.71
4		Dano Halsall	Switzerland	22.83
5		Stefan Volery	Switzerland	22.84
6		Vladimir Tkachenko	Soviet Union	22.88
7		Frank Henter	West Germany	23.03
8		Andrew Baildon	Australia	23.15

Key: WR = World record

B final

Place	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
9		Goran Titus	Sweden	23.28
10		Per Johansson	Sweden	23.37
11		Peng Siong Ang	Singapore	23.39
12		Shen Jianqiang	China	23.40
13		Christophe Kalfayan	France	23.45
14		Stephen Gusgen	West Germany	23.55
15		Mark Andrews	Canada	23.64
16		Hilton Woods	Netherlands Antilles	23.65

Olympic Champions in Men's 50 m Freestyle 1904 (50 yards): Zoltán Halmay 1988: Matt Biondi 1992: Alexander Popov 1996: Alexander Popov 2000: Anthony Ervin and Gary Hall, Jr. 2004: Gary Hall, Jr. 2008: César Cielo

References

• Swimming World Magazine, November 1988