Swimming at the 1964 Summer Olympics – Men's 100 metre freestyle


The men's 100 metre freestyle event at the 1964 Olympic Games took place between October 11 and 12.

Competition format

The competition used a three-round format. The advancement rule followed the format introduced in 1952. A swimmer's place in the heat was not used to determine advancement; instead, the fastest times from across all heats in a round were used. There were 9 heats of 7 or 8 swimmers each. The top 24 swimmers advanced to the semifinals. There were 3 semifinals of 8 swimmers each. The top 8 swimmers advanced to the final. Swim-offs were used as necessary to break ties.
This swimming event used freestyle swimming, which means that the method of the stroke is not regulated. 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.

Results

Heats

Nine heats were held; the fastest 24 swimmers advanced to the semifinals.
RankHeatSwimmerNationTimeNotes
11Gary Ilman54.0,
25Don Schollander54.3
35Yukiaki Okabe54.4
49Bobby McGregor54.7
52Mike Austin54.9
62David Dickson55.1
63Per-Ola Lindberg55.1
86Alain Gottvallès55.2
86Daniel Sherry55.2
104Hans-Joachim Klein55.3
118Ron Kroon55.5
116John Ryan55.5
118Jindřich Vágner55.5
145Uwe Jacobsen55.6
146Horst Löffler55.6
149Bengt Nordwall55.6
178Bob Lord55.7
183Pietro Boscaini55.8
187Gyula Dobay55.8
187Tatsuo Fujimoto55.8
187Sandy Gilchrist55.8
183Tadaharu Goto55.8
181Gérard Gropaiz55.8
246Vladimir Shuvalov55.9
251Athos de Oliveira56.0
263Luis Nicolao56.1
264Peter Phelps56.1
282Jean-Pascal Curtillet56.2
284Lester Eriksson56.2
289Viktor Semchenkov56.2
318József Gulrich56.3
312Matti Kasvio56.3
314Yury Sumtsov56.3
345Petr Lohnický56.4
357Gert Kölli56.5
361Bruno Bianchi56.8
369Sergio De Gregorio56.8
362Álvaro Pires56.8
364François Simons56.8
369Antal Száll56.8
361Vinus van Baalen56.8
365Gerhard Wieland56.8
432Téodoro Capriles57.2
443José Miguel Espinosa57.4
454Carlos van der Maath57.5
468Tuomo Hämäläinen57.6
477David Haller57.7
471Ralph Hutton57.7
495Antonio Pérez57.8
507Bert Sitters58.1
517Luis Paz58.5
526Georges Welbes58.6
532Tan Thuan Heng58.7
536Hannu Vaahtoranta58.7
558Salvador Ruiz58.8
568Pano Capéronis58.9
576Gudmunður Gíslason59.0
573Herlander Ribeiro59.0
595Mauri Fonseca59.6
603Somchai Limpichat59.8
617Robert Loh1:00.4
624Nguyễn Ðình Lê1:01.1
629Phan Hữu Dong1:01.1
641Kim Bong-jo1:01.2
659Celestino Pérez1:01.3
669Haydar Shonjani1:02.1

Semifinals

Three heats were held; the fastest eight swimmers advanced to the final.
RankHeatSwimmerNationTimeNotes
11Gary Ilman53.9,
22Don Schollander54.0
31Mike Austin54.3
32Alain Gottvallès54.3
33Bobby McGregor54.3
63Hans-Joachim Klein54.4
73Gyula Dobay54.8
72Uwe Jacobsen54.8
93David Dickson54.9
102Per-Ola Lindberg55.1
111Yukiaki Okabe55.2
121Daniel Sherry55.5
122Jindřich Vágner55.5
141Tadaharu Goto55.6
152Gérard Gropaiz55.7
151Ron Kroon55.7
173Tatsuo Fujimoto55.8
173Vladimir Shuvalov55.8
191Horst Löffler56.0
201Pietro Boscaini56.1
212Sandy Gilchrist56.4
213Bengt Nordwall56.4
232Bob Lord56.5
233John Ryan56.5

Final

The officials used unofficial electronic scoring to determine which swimmer won the bronze medal - Klein had finished one one-thousandth of a second sooner than Ilman.
RankSwimmerNationTimeNotes
Don Schollander53.4
Bobby McGregor53.5
Hans-Joachim Klein54.0
4Gary Ilman54.0
5Alain Gottvallès54.2
6Mike Austin54.5
7Gyula Dobay54.9
8Uwe Jacobsen56.1