Swimming at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Men's 100 metre freestyle

Swimming events at the 1972 Summer Olympics
Freestyle
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
400 m	men	women
800 m		women
1500 m	men
Backstroke
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
Breaststroke
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
Butterfly
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
Individual medley
200 m	men	women
400 m	men	women
Freestyle relay
4×100 m	men	women
4×200 m	men
Medley relay
4×100 m	men	women

The men's 100 metre freestyle event at the 1972 Olympic Games took place between September 2 and 3. This swimming event used freestyle swimming, which means that the method of the stroke is not regulated (unlike backstroke, 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 two lengths of the pool.

Medalists

Gold	Mark Spitz United States
Silver	Jerry Heidenreich United States
Bronze	Vladimir Bure Soviet Union

Results

Heats

16 fastest swimmer from seven heats advanced to semifinal.

Heat 1

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time
1	Ruy de Oliveira	Brazil	54.26
2	Gilles Vigne	France	54.34
3	Wilfried Hartung	East Germany	54.37
4	Malcolm Windeatt	Great Britain	54.70
5	Geoffrey Ferreira	Trinidad and Tobago	56.27
6	Roberto Strauss	Mexico	56.78

Heat 2

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Note
1	Igor Grivennikov	Soviet Union	53.64	Q
2	Colin Herring	New Zealand	54.41
3	Alain Hermitte	France	54.57
4	István Szentirmay	Hungary	54.71
5	Antonio Ferracuti	El Salvador	56.69
6	Sandro Rudan	Yugoslavia	56.91
7	Bruno Bassoul	Lebanon	1:00.8

Heat 3

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Note
1	Vladimir Bure	Soviet Union	52.87	Q
2	Jorge Comas	23x15px Spain	53.70	Q
3	José Aranha	Brazil	54.06	Q
4	Hanspeter Würmli	Switzerland	55.08
5	Neil Rogers	Australia	55.32
6	Samnang Prak	Cambodia	59.18

Heat 4

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Note
1	Michel Rousseau	France	52.93	Q
2	Kersten Meier	West Germany	53.96	Q
3	Greg Rogers	Australia	53.98	Q
4	Hartmut Flöckner	East Germany	54.36
5	Bruce Robertson	Canada	54.76
6	Feridun Aybars	Turkey	59.32

Heat 5

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Note
1	John Murphy	United States	53.07	Q
2	Georgijs Kuļikovs	Soviet Union	53.78	Q
3	Peter Bruch	East Germany	54.25	Q
4	Paulo Zanetti	Brazil	54.97
5	Brian Brinkley	Great Britain	55.06
6	Zbigniew Pacelt	Poland	55.97
7	Andrew Hunter	Ireland	56.09
8	Abdullah Abdurrahman	Kuwait	1:03.94

Heat 6

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Note
1	Jerry Heidenreich	United States	52.38	Q
2	Brian Phillips	Canada	53.75	Q
3	Bob Kasting	Canada	54.07	Q
4	Gerald Schiller	West Germany	54.28
5	Attila Császári	Hungary	55.37
6	Finnur Garðarsson	Iceland	55.97
7	Salvador Vilanova	El Salvador	56.57
8	Wong Ronnie	23x15px Hong Kong	57.53

Heat 7

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Note
1	Mike Wenden	Australia	52.34	Q
2	Mark Spitz	United States	52.46	Q
3	Klaus Steinbach	West Germany	52.91	Q
4	Fritz Warncke	Norway	54.41
5	Roberto Pangaro	Italy	54.74
6	Marian Slavic	Romania	55.35
7	Jorge van Balen	23x15px Venezuela	57.20

Semifinals

Top three swimmers in each heat and next two fastest advanced to the final.

Semifinal 1

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Note
1	Jerry Heidenreich	United States	52.31	Q
2	Igor Grivennikov	Soviet Union	52.55	Q
3	Vladimir Bure	Soviet Union	52.60	Q
4	Michel Rousseau	France	52.82	q
5	José Aranha	Brazil	53.47
6	Brian Phillips	Canada	53.73
7	Peter Bruch	East Germany	53.97
8	Kersten Meier	West Germany	54.35

Semifinal 2

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Note
1	Mike Wenden	Australia	52.32	Q
2	Mark Spitz	United States	52.43	Q
3	Klaus Steinbach	West Germany	52.87	Q
4	John Murphy	United States	53.17	q
5	Bob Kasting	Canada	53.62
6	Georgijs Kuļikovs	Soviet Union	53.68
7	Jorge Comas	23x15px Spain	53.92
8	Greg Rogers	Australia	54.26

Final

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
	Mark Spitz	United States	51.22	WR
	Jerry Heidenreich	United States	51.65
	Vladimir Bure	Soviet Union	51.77
4	John Murphy	United States	52.08
5	Mike Wenden	Australia	52.41
6	Igor Grivennikov	Soviet Union	52.44
7	Michel Rousseau	France	52.90
8	Klaus Steinbach	West Germany	52.92