The women's 400 metre freestyle event at the 1952 Olympic Games

1952 Summer Olympics

The 1952 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Helsinki, Finland in 1952. Helsinki had been earlier given the 1940 Summer Olympics, which were cancelled due to World War II...

 took place between July 31 and August 2 at the Swimming Stadium

Helsinki Swimming Stadium

Helsinki Swimming Stadium is an outdoors swimming venue in Helsinki, Finland, located in the Eläintarha area to the northeast of the Helsinki Olympic Stadium.-History:...

. This swimming

Swimming (sport)

Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...

 event used freestyle swimming

Freestyle swimming

Freestyle is an unregulated swimming style used in swimming competitions according to the rules of FINA. The front crawl stroke is almost universally used during a freestyle race, as this style is generally the fastest...

, which means that the method of the stroke is not regulated (unlike backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly events). Nearly all swimmers use the front crawl

Front crawl

The front crawl, forward crawl, or freestyle is a swimming stroke usually regarded as the fastest of the four front primary strokes. As such, the front crawl stroke is nearly universally used during a freestyle swimming competition, hence the synonymously used term "freestyle". It is one of two...

 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

Final

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
	Valéria Gyenge Valéria Gyenge Valéria Gyenge is a Hungarian Olympic swimming champion who competed at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, where she received a gold medal in 400 m freestyle....		5:12.1	OR
	Éva Novák Eva Novak Eva Barbara Novak was an American film actress, being quite popular during the silent film era. She was the younger sister of actress Jane Novak and daughter of Joseph, an immigrant from Bohemia, and Barbara Novak....		5:13.7
	Evelyn Kawamoto		5:14.6
4	Carolyn Green Carolyn Green Carolyn Virginia Green-Lewis is a former American swimmer. She represented the United States as an eighteen-year-old at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, where she finished in 4th place in the 400-meter freestyle...		5:16.5
5	Ragnhild Hveger Ragnhild Hveger Ragnhild Tove Hveger is a retired swimmer from Denmark, who won the silver medal in the women's 400 m freestyle at the 1936 Summer Olympics.-References:* *...		5:16.9
6	Éva Székely Éva Székely Éva Székely is a Hungarian retired female swimmer. She won the gold medal at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki and the silver medal at the 1956 Summer Olympics....		5:17.9
7	Ana María Schultz Ana María Schultz Ana María Schultz is a retired female freestyle swimmer from Argentina who represented her native country at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Finland. She claimed a total number of five medals at the 1951 Pan American Games....		5:24.0
8	Greta Andersen Greta Andersen Greta Andersen is a Danish swimmer and Olympic champion, later settled in Long Beach, California. She competed at the 1948 Olympic Games in London, where she received a gold medal in 100 m freestyle, and a silver medal in 4 × 100 m freestyle relay.-Channel swimmer:Greta Andersen set the women's...		5:27.0

Key: OR = Olympic record