Swimming at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Women's 400 metre individual medley
Introduction 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
Results ===Heats==='''Heat 1''' Rank  Athlete Country  Time  Notes 1  Gail Neall   5:11.89   2  Susan Hunter   5:14.47   3  Jaroslava Slavíčková   5:18.53   4  Birutė Užkuraitytė   5:20.05   5  Helga Niemann   5:21.97   6  Shelagh Ratcliffe   5:24.27   7  Helmi Boxberger   5:32.31   8  Silvia Borgini   5:44.22  '''Heat 2''' Rank  Athlete Country  Time  Notes 1  Hennie Penterman   5:14.99   2  Marlies Pohl   5:15.38   3  Jennifer McHugh   5:20.25   4  Debbie Bengtson   5:21.62   5  Eva Sigg   5:22.92   6  Karen Moras   5:24.13   7  Kirsten Strange-Campbell   5:25.97  '''Heat 3''' Rank  Athlete Country  Time  Notes 1  Lynn Vidali   5:09.67   2  Novella Calligaris   5:11.16   3  Gerda Lassooij   5:22.09   4  Maria Isabel Guerra   5:24.43   5  Trine Krogh   5:25.08   6  Diane Walker   5:28.82   7  Eleni Avlonitou   5:32.49   8  Béatrice Mottoulle   5:35.38  '''Heat 4''' Rank  Athlete Country  Time  Notes 1  Evelyn Stolze   5:06.96   2  Jenny Bartz   5:07.31   3  Nina Petrova   5:13.42   4  Yukari Takemoto   5:20.89   5  Wijda Mazereeuw   5:24.00   6  Laura Vaca   5:24.63   7  Roselina Angee   5:35.44  '''Heat 5''' Rank  Athlete Country  Time  Notes 1  Leslie Cliff   5:08.64   2  Mary Montgomery   5:13.62   3  Angela Franke   5:14.81   4  Anita Zarnowiecki   5:15.05   5  Susan Richardson   5:19.53   6  Susanne Niesner   5:25.23   7  Gisela Cerezo   5:29.56   8  María Ballesteros   5:31.06  ===Final=== Rank  Athlete Country  Time  Notes  1  Gail Neall   5:02.97  '''WR'''  2 Leslie Cliff   5:03.57  '''  '''  3  Novella Calligaris   5:03.99  ''' ''' 4  Jenny Bartz   5:05.56  ''' ''' 5   Evelyn Stolze   5:06.80  ''' ''' 6   Mary Montgomery   5:09.98  ''' ''' 7  Lynn Vidali   5:13.06  ''' ''' 8  Nina Petrova   5:15.68  ''' ''''''Key''': WR = World record
References