Swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's 200 metre individual medley

Men's 200 metre individual medley
at the Games of the XXIX Olympiad
Men's 200 metre individual medley; at the Games of the XXIX Olympiad
Venue	Beijing National Aquatics Center
Date	August 13, 2008 (heats); August 14, 2008 (semifinals); August 15, 2008 (final)
Competitors	47 from 42 nations
Winning time	1:54.23 WR
Medalists
	← 2004 2012 →

The men's 200 metre individual medley event at the 2008 Olympic Games took place on 13–15 August at the Beijing National Aquatics Center in Beijing, China.^[1]

U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps blasted a new world record to defend his title in the event, and more importantly, claim his sixth Olympic gold, twelfth career, and fourteenth overall medal. He established a sterling time of 1:54.23 to lower his prior standard from the Olympic trials by almost six-tenths of a second (0.60). Hungary's László Cseh added a third silver to his collection, finishing with a European record of 1:56.52. Phelps' teammate and archrival Ryan Lochte earned a bronze in a time of 1:56.53, just a hundredth of a second (0.01) behind Cseh. The podium placements also replicated the results of the 400 m individual medley, held on the first day of the Games.^[2]^[3]

Brazil's Thiago Pereira finished fourth with a time of 1:58.14, and was followed in the fifth spot by Japan's Ken Takakuwa, in an Asian record of 1:58.22. A full second later, Great Britain's James Goddard posted a time of 1:59.24 to earn a sixth spot, while Canada's Keith Beavers (1:59.43) and Goddard's teammate Liam Tancock (2:00.76) rounded out the finale.^[2]

Records

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

World record	Michael Phelps (USA)	1:54.80	Omaha, United States	5 July 2008	^[4]
Olympic record	Michael Phelps (USA)	1:57.14	Athens, Greece	19 August 2004	-

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

Date	Event	Name	Nationality	Time	Record
August 15	Final	Michael Phelps	United States	1:54.23	WR

Results

Heats

Rank	Heat	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	5	4	Ryan Lochte	United States	1:58.15	Q
2	4	4	László Cseh	Hungary	1:58.29	Q
3	5	5	Thiago Pereira	Brazil	1:58.41	Q
4	4	6	Ken Takakuwa	Japan	1:58.51	Q, AS
5	4	7	Bradley Ally	Barbados	1:58.57	Q, NR
6	6	4	Michael Phelps	United States	1:58.65	Q
7	5	7	Alessio Boggiatto	Italy	1:58.80	Q
8	6	2	Takuro Fujii	Japan	1:59.19	Q
9	5	1	Keith Beavers	Canada	1:59.19	Q, NR
10	6	1	Darian Townsend	South Africa	1:59.22	Q, AF
11	6	6	Vytautas Janušaitis	Lithuania	1:59.63	Q
12	3	1	Gal Nevo	Israel	1:59.66	Q
13	6	5	James Goddard	Great Britain	1:59.74	Q
14	4	5	Liam Tancock	Great Britain	1:59.79	Q
15	5	6	Leith Brodie	Australia	1:59.96	Q
16	4	3	Dinko Jukić	Austria	2:00.57	Q
17	5	3	Tamás Kerékjártó	Hungary	2:00.60
18	6	3	Brian Johns	Canada	2:00.66
19	6	7	Diogo Carvalho	Portugal	2:00.66
20	3	6	Mihail Alexandrov	Bulgaria	2:00.70	NR
21	5	2	Dean Kent	New Zealand	2:01.12
22	6	8	Alexander Tikhonov	Russia	2:01.21
23	3	5	Ioannis Kokkodis	Greece	2:01.22
24	3	8	Jeremy Knowles	Bahamas	2:01.35	NR
25	2	6	Gard Kvale	Norway	2:01.52	NR
26	4	2	Łukasz Wójt	Poland	2:01.54
27	2	3	Miguel Molina	Philippines	2:01.61
28	2	4	Vadym Lepskyy	Ukraine	2:01.73
29	3	7	Saša Imprić	Croatia	2:01.83
30	1	7	Omar Pinzón	Colombia	2:02.28
31	2	2	Tomáš Fučík	Czech Republic	2:02.85
32	1	5	Chris Christensen	Denmark	2:02.93
33	4	1	Brenton Cabello	Spain	2:03.08
34	3	4	Qu Jingyu	China	2:03.15
35	4	8	Martin Liivamägi	Estonia	2:03.56
36	2	5	Nicholas Bovell	Trinidad and Tobago	2:03.90
37	3	3	Dmitriy Gordiyenko	Kazakhstan	2:03.92
38	1	1	Andrejs Dūda	Latvia	2:04.18
39	5	8	Robin van Aggele	Netherlands	2:04.33
40	3	2	Markus Deibler	Germany	2:04.54
41	1	2	Mehdi Hamama	Algeria	2:04.91
42	2	8	Serkan Atasay	Turkey	2:05.25
43	2	1	Leopoldo Andara	Venezuela	2:05.71	NR
44	1	4	Park Beom-ho	South Korea	2:06.17
45	1	3	Iurii Zakharov	Kyrgyzstan	2:07.01
46	1	6	Danil Bugakov	Uzbekistan	2:10.04
	2	7	Andrew Bree	Ireland	DNS

Semifinals

Semifinal 1

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	3	Michael Phelps	United States	1:57.70	Q
2	4	László Cseh	Hungary	1:58.19	Q
3	5	Ken Takakuwa	Japan	1:58.49	Q, AS
4	1	Liam Tancock	Great Britain	1:59.42	Q
5	6	Keith Beavers	Canada	1:59.43	Q
6	2	Darian Townsend	South Africa	1:59.65
7	7	Gal Nevo	Israel	2:00.43
8	8	Dinko Jukić	Austria	2:00.98

Semifinal 2

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	4	Ryan Lochte	United States	1:57.69	Q
2	5	Thiago Pereira	Brazil	1:58.06	Q
3	1	James Goddard	Great Britain	1:58.63	Q
4	3	Bradley Ally	Barbados	1:59.53
5	2	Takuro Fujii	Japan	1:59.59
6	6	Alessio Boggiatto	Italy	1:59.77
7	8	Leith Brodie	Australia	2:00.57
8	7	Vytautas Janušaitis	Lithuania	2:00.76

Final

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
	5	Michael Phelps	United States	1:54.23	WR
	6	László Cseh	Hungary	1:56.52	EU
	4	Ryan Lochte	United States	1:56.53
4	3	Thiago Pereira	Brazil	1:58.14
5	2	Ken Takakuwa	Japan	1:58.22	AS
6	7	James Goddard	Great Britain	1:59.24
7	8	Keith Beavers	Canada	1:59.43
8	1	Liam Tancock	Great Britain	2:00.76