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 The standing world and Olympic records prior to this competition were as follows. Clark's Olympic record was set as the first leg in the 4 × 200 metre freestyle relay final. Making the final in the 1976 event required at least matching the Olympic record, with seven men coming in under that time and an eighth equaling it. Andrey Bogdanov held a new record briefly, swimming 1:52.71 in the second heat. Klaus Steinbach dropped more than a full second off that time in the next heat, though, with a time of 1:51.41. The fourth, fifth, and sixth heats saw four men swim between Bogdanov's and Steinbach's times. Bruce Furniss, swimming in the eighth heat, cut almost half a second off Steinbach's record, coming in at 1:50.93. That record would not stand long; four men beat it in the final. Only one of those men came in under the world record however: Furniss bettered his own world and Olympic records with 1:50.29 to win gold. Schedule All times are Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-4) Results Heats Final References Men's freestyle 200 metre 200 metre freestyle at the Olympics Men's events at the 1976 Summer Olympics