Swimming at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Women's 800 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 women's 800 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 sixteen lengths of the pool.

Medalists

Gold	Keena Rothhammer United States
Silver	Shane Gould Australia
Bronze	Novella Calligaris Italy

Results

Heats

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Final

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
	Keena Rothhammer	United States	8:53.68	WR
	Shane Gould	Australia	8:56.39
	Novella Calligaris	Italy	8:57.46
4	Ann Simmons	United States	8:57.62
5	Gudrun Wegner	East Germany	8:58.89
6	Jo Harshbarger	United States	9:01.21
7	Hansje Bunschoten	Netherlands	9:16.69
8	Narelle Moras	Australia	9:19.06