Swimming at the 1960 Summer Olympics – Women's 200 metre breaststroke

Women's 200 metre breaststroke at the Games of the XVII Olympiad
Venue	Stadio Olimpico del Nuoto
Date	26 August (heats) 27 August (final)
Competitors	30 from 19 nations
Winning time	2:49.5 (OR)
Medalists
Anita Lonsbrough  Great Britain Wiltrud Urselmann  Germany Barbara Göbel  Germany

Swimming at the 1960 Summer Olympics
Freestyle
100 m	men		women
400 m	men		women
1500 m	men
Backstroke
100 m	men		women
Breaststroke
200 m	men		women
Butterfly
100 m			women
200 m	men
Freestyle relay
4×100 m			women
4×200 m	men
Medley relay
4×100 m	men		women

The women's 200 metre breaststroke event, included in the swimming competition at the 1960 Summer Olympics, took place on August 26–27, at the Stadio Olimpico del Nuoto. In this event, swimmers covered four lengths of the 50-metre (160 ft) Olympic-sized pool employing the breaststroke. It was the eighth appearance of the event, which first appeared at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris. A total of 30 competitors from 19 nations participated in the event. British gold-medalist Anita Lonsbrough became the first swimmer to break the world record in this event, with a time of 2:49.5 in the final.

Records

Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were:

World record	Wiltrud Urselmann (FRG)	2:50.2 s	Aachen, West Germany	6 June 1960
Olympic record	Ursula Happe (GER)	2:53.1 s	Melbourne, Australia	30 November 1956

The following records were established during the competition:

Date	Round	Name	Nationality	Time	OR	WR
August 26	Heat 2	Anita Lonsbrough	Great Britain	2:53.3	OR
August 26	Heat 3	Wiltrud Urselmann	Germany	2:52.0	OR
August 27	Final	Anita Lonsbrough	Great Britain	2:49.5	OR	WR

Results

Heats

Rank	Heat	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	3	4	Wiltrud Urselmann	Germany	2:52.0	Q, OR
2	2	4	Anita Lonsbrough	Great Britain	2:53.3	Q, OR
3	4	5	Ada den Haan	Netherlands	2:54.0	Q
4	1	4	Barbara Göbel	Germany	2:54.2	Q
5	3	5	Gretta Kok	Netherlands	2:55.2	Q
6	3	2	Patty Kempner	United States	2:55.5	Q
7	3	6	Dorrit Kristensen	Denmark	2:56.2	Q
8	4	4	Anne Warner	United States	2:56.3	Q
9	3	3	Christine Gosden	Great Britain	2:56.9
10	4	7	Elena Zennaro	Italy	2:57.0
11	1	3	Rosemary Lassig	Australia	2:57.4
12	1	5	Yoshiko Takamatsu	Japan	2:57.6
13	2	5	Klára Killermann	Hungary	2:58.7
14	2	3	Barbro Eriksson	Sweden	2:59.8
15	4	6	Inge Andersen	Denmark	2:57.6
16	4	2	Janet Hogan	Australia	3:00.3
17	2	6	Amélie Mirkowitch	France	3:01.5
18	4	3	Marta Kadlecová	Czechoslovakia	3:01.7
19	1	2	Michèle Pialat	France	3:02.2
20	2	2	Christl Filippovits	Austria	3:02.6
21	2	7	Lyudmila Korobova	Soviet Union	3:02.7
22	1	6	Eve Maurer	Soviet Union	3:03.1
23	1	1	Meg Miners	Rhodesia	3:05.2
24	3	7	Judith McHale	23x15px Canada	3:07.7
25	1	7	Christl Wöber	Austria	3:09.3
26	2	1	Luciana Marcellini	Italy	3:09.8
27	1	8	Maya Hungerbühler	Switzerland	3:10.1
28	3	8	Isabel Castañe	23x15px Spain	3:10.4
29	4	1	Regina Veloso	Portugal	3:13.3
30	3	1	Suzette Schmidlin	Switzerland	—	DNS

Final

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
	5	Anita Lonsbrough	Great Britain	2:49.5	WR
	4	Wiltrud Urselmann	Germany	2:50.0
	6	Barbara Göbel	Germany	2:53.6
4	3	Ada den Haan	Netherlands	2:54.4
5	2	Gretta Kok	Netherlands	2:54.6
6	8	Anne Warner	United States	2:55.4
7	7	Patty Kempner	United States	2:55.5
8	1	Dorrit Kristensen	Denmark	2:55.7