Swimming at the 1968 Summer Olympics – Women's 100 metre breaststroke
Introduction The '''women's 100 metre breaststroke''' event at the 1968 Summer Olympics took place between 18 and 19 October in the Alberca Olímpica Francisco Márquez. This swimming event used the breaststroke. Because an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of two lengths of the pool. This was the first appearance for this event in the Olympics for the women swimmers.American Katie Ball was the favorite to win three gold medals at the 1968 Olympics. She was the reigning world record holder in all four breaststroke distances and bettered her own world records in the 100-meter and 200-meter breaststroke at the U.S. Olympic Trials in August 1968.She arrived at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, however, with a case of influenza. She won her only Olympic medal, a gold, as a member of the winning U.S. 4×100-meter medley relay team by swimming the breaststroke leg of the four-person relay. Sharing the gold medal honors were her relay teammates Kaye Hall (backstroke), Ellie Daniel (butterfly) and Susan Pedersen (freestyle). In the 100-meter breaststroke final, Ball led close to the finish but physical exhaustion overwhelmed her, and she finished fifth. She was too ill to swim in the subsequent preliminary heats of the 200-meter breaststroke and was scratched from the event.
Results ===Heats==='''Heat 1''' Rank  Athlete Country  Time  Notes 1  Catie Ball   1:18.8  ''' OR ''' 2  Jo-Anne Barnes   1:19.1  ''' ''' 3  Sue Jones   1:19.3  ''' ''' 4  Dorothy Harrison   1:19.6  ''' ''' 5  Christine Filippovits |  1:19.9  ''' ''' 6  Tamara Oynick   1:22.7  ''' ''' 7  Liana Vicens   1:25.2  ''' ''''''Heat 2''' Rank  Athlete Country  Time  Notes 1  Djurdjica Bjedov   1:17.7  ''' OR ''' 2  Alla Grebennikova   1:19.3  ''' ''' 3  Shlomit Nir   1:20.9  ''' ''' 4  Ann O'Connor   1:21.1  ''' ''' 5  Marjan Janus   1:21.9  ''' ''' 6  Tamara Orejuela   1:26.8  ''' ''' 7  Celia Jokisch   1:46.6  ''' ''''''Heat 3''' Rank  Athlete Country  Time  Notes 1  Sharon Wichman   1:18.3  ''' ''' 2  Judy Playfair   1:19.2  ''' ''' 3  Yvonne Brage   1:20.8  ''' ''' 4  Vreni Eberle   1:22.6  ''' ''' 5  Víctoria Casas   1:24.7  ''' ''' 6  María Moreño   1:27.2  ''' ''''''Heat 4''' Rank  Athlete Country  Time  Notes 1  Uta Frommater   1:18.5  ''' ''' 2  Galina Prozumenschikova   1:18.6  ''' ''' 3  Svetlana Babanina   1:20.2  ''' ''' 4  Jill Slattery   1:20.7  ''' ''' 5  Sue McKenzie   1:20.9  ''' ''' 6  Ellen Ingvadóttir   1:22.6  ''' ''''''Heat 5''' Rank  Athlete Country  Time  Notes 1  Ana María Norbis   1:17.4  ''' OR ''' 2  Kiyoe Nakagawa   1:18.2  ''' ''' 3  Diana Harris   1:19.8  ''' ''' 4  Yukari Takemoto   1:20.7  ''' ''' 5  Márta Egerváry   1:22.6  ''' ''' 6  Arlette Wilmes   1:24.4  ''' ''' 7  María Castro   1:36.9  ''' '''===Semifinals==='''Heat 1''' Rank  Athlete Country  Time  Notes 1  Sharon Wichman   1:16.8  ''' OR ''' 2  Djurdjica Bjedov   1:17.1  ''' ''' 3  Galina Prozumenschikova   1:17.5  ''' ''' 4  Joanne Barnes   1:18.4  ''' ''' 5  Alla Grebennikova   1:18.6  ''' ''' 6  Christine Filippovits   1:18.9  ''' ''' 7  Dorothy Harrison   1:19.6  ''' ''' 8  Jill Slattery   1:19.8  ''' ''''''Heat 2''' Rank  Athlete Country  Time  Notes 1  Ana Norbis   1:16.7  ''' OR ''' 2  Catie Ball   1:16.8  ''' ''' 3  Uta Frommater   1:16.9  ''' ''' 4  Kiyoe Nakagawa   1:17.7  ''' ''' 5  Svetlana Babanina   1:18.3  ''' ''' 6  Sue Jones   1:18.6  ''' ''' 7  Judy Playfair   1:19.3  ''' ''' 8  Diana Harris   1:19.3  ''' '''===Final=== Rank  Athlete Country  Time  Notes  1  Đurđica Bjedov   1:15.8  '''OR'''  2 Galina Prozumenshchikova   1:15.9  '''  '''  3  Sharon Wichman   1:16.1  ''' ''' 4  Uta Frommater   1:16.2  ''' ''' 5   Catie Ball   1:16.7  ''' ''' 6   Kiyoe Nakagawa   1:17.0  ''' ''' 7  Svetlana Babanina   1:17.2  ''' ''' 8  Ana María Norbis   1:17.3  ''' ''''''Key''': OR = Olympic record
References
External links * 1968 Summer Olympics results: Women's 100 m breaststroke, from http://library.la84.org/; retrieved 2016-04-02.