Swimming at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Women's 400 metre individual medley

Swimming events at the
1972 Summer Olympics
Freestyle
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 women's 400 metre individual medley event at the 1972 Summer Olympics took place August 31. 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 second pair with the backstroke, the third pair of lengths in breaststroke, and the final two were freestyle. 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.

Medalists

Gold Gail Neall
Australia (AUS)
Silver Leslie Cliff
Canada (CAN)
Bronze Novella Calligaris
Italy (ITA)

Results

Final

Rank Athlete Country Time Notes
Gail Neall Australia 5:02.97 WR
Leslie Cliff Canada 5:03.57
Novella Calligaris Italy 5:03.99
4 Jenny Bartz United States 5:05.56
5 Evelyn Stolze East Germany 5:06.80
6 Mary Montgomery United States 5:09.98
7 Lynn Vidali United States 5:13.06
8 Nina Petrova Soviet Union 5:15.68

Key: WR = World record

References