The men's 100 metre freestyle event at the 1968 Olympic Games

1968 Summer Olympics

The 1968 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Mexico City, Mexico in October 1968. The 1968 Games were the first Olympic Games hosted by a developing country, and the first Games hosted by a Spanish-speaking country...

 took place between October 18 and 19. 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 two lengths of the pool.

Medalists

Final

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
	Mike Wenden		52.2	WR
	Ken Walsh		52.8
	Mark Spitz Mark Spitz Mark Andrew Spitz is a retired American swimmer. He won seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, an achievement only surpassed by Michael Phelps who won eight golds at the 2008 Olympics....		53.0
4	Bobby McGregor		53.5
5	Leonid Ilyichov		53.8
6	Georgijs Kuļikovs		53.8
7	Luis Nicolao Luis Nicolao Luis Alberto Nicolao is a retired butterfly swimmer from Argentina, who in 1962 twice broke the world record in the men's 100 metres butterfly . He first did so on April 24, 1962 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he clocked 58.4. Three days later he raised the standard to 57.0...		53.9
8	Zac Zorn		53.9

Key: WR = World record