The men's 200 metre freestyle event at the 1976 Olympic Games

1976 Summer Olympics

The 1976 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event celebrated in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1976. Montreal was awarded the rights to the 1976 Games on May 12, 1970, at the 69th IOC Session in Amsterdam, over the bids of Moscow and...

 took place July 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 four lengths of the pool.

Medalists

Final

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
	Bruce Furniss Bruce Furniss Bruce MacFarlane Furniss is an American swimmer. He won two gold medals in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal in the Men's 200 metre freestyle and the Men's 4x200 metre Freestyle Relay, both in world record time....		1:50.29	WR
	John Naber John Naber John Phillips Naber is a former American swimmer who specialized in the backstroke and five-time Olympic medallist .-Career:...		1:50.50
	Jim Montgomery		1:50.50
4	Andrey Krylov		1:50.73
5	Klaus Steinbach Klaus Steinbach Klaus Steinbach is a former World Record holding and Olympic freestyle swimmer from Germany. He swam for Germany at the 1972 and 1976 Olympics....		1:51.09
6	Peter Nocke Peter Nocke Peter Nocke is a retired freestyle swimmer, who represented West Germany at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada. There he won the bronze medal in the men's 100 m freestyle. Nocke won a total number of nine European titles during the 1970s.-References:...		1:51.71
7	Gordon Downie		1:52.78
8	Andrey Bogdanov		1:53.33

Key: WR = World record