# Swimming at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Women's 200 metre individual medley

The women's 200 metre individual medley event at the 1972 Olympic Games took place August 28. This swimming event used medley swimming. Because an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of four lengths of the pool. The first length was swum using the butterfly stroke, the second with the backstroke, the third length in breaststroke, and the fourth freestyle. Unlike other events using freestyle, swimmers could not use butterfly, backstroke, or breaststroke for the freestyle leg; most swimmers use the front crawl in freestyle events anyway.

## Medalists

| Gold | Shane Gould Australia |
| Silver | Kornelia Ender East Germany |
| Bronze | Lynn Vidali United States |

## Results
### Heats

Heat 1
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time |
| 1 | Nina Petrova | Soviet Union | 2:27.20 |
| 2 | Anita Zarnowiecki | Sweden | 2:29.08 |
| 3 | Gail Neall | Australia | 2:29.64 |
| 4 | Karen James | Canada | 2:31.25 |
| 5 | Debra Cain | Australia | 2:31.82 |
| 6 | Eleni Avlonitou | Greece | 2:39.10 |
| 7 | Patricia López | Argentina | 2:42.08 |
Heat 2
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time |
| 1 | Evelyn Stolze | East Germany | 2:25.45 |
| 2 | Leslie Cliff | Canada | 2:25.59 |
| 3 | Jaroslava Slavíčková | Czechoslovakia | 2:27.33 |
| 4 | Hennie Penterman | Netherlands | 2:28.99 |
| 5 | Éva Kiss | Hungary | 2:32.68 |
| 6 | Hsu Yue-yun | Chinese Taipei | 2:35.93 |
| 7 | María Ballesteros | Mexico | 2:37.00 |
Heat 3
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time | Notes |
| 1 | Jenny Bartz | United States | 2:25.83 | |
| 2 | Brigitte Schuchardt | East Germany | 2:30.04 | |
| 3 | Martha Nelson | Canada | 2:30.51 | |
| 4 | Shelagh Ratcliffe | Great Britain | 2:31.04 | |
| 5 | Gerda Lassooij | Netherlands | 2:32.92 | |
| 6 | Eva Sigg | Finland | 2:33.61 | |
| 7 | Gisela Cerezo | Venezuela | 2:35.34 | |
| 8 | Laura Vaca | Mexico | 2:34.35 | DQ |
Heat 4
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time |
| 1 | Kornelia Ender | East Germany | 2:25.39 |
| 2 | Carolyn Woods | United States | 2:26.98 |
| 3 | Susan Hunter | New Zealand | 2:30.29 |
| 4 | Wijda Mazereeuw | Netherlands | 2:32.59 |
| 5 | Avis Willington | Great Britain | 2:32.64 |
| 6 | Maria Isabel Guerra | Brazil | 2:32.95 |
| 7 | Kirsten Strange-Campbell | Denmark | 2:33.15 |
Heat 5
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time |
| 1 | Lynn Vidali | United States | 2:24.92 |
| 2 | Yoshimi Nishigawa | Japan | 2:26.61 |
| 3 | Birutė Užkuraitytė | Soviet Union | 2:31.11 |
| 4 | Susan Richardson | Great Britain | 2:31.24 |
| 5 | Judit Turóczy | Hungary | 2:32.63 |
| 6 | Trine Krogh | Norway | 2:36.27 |
| 7 | Felicia Ospitaletche | Uruguay | 2:37.69 |
Heat 6
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time |
| 1 | Shane Gould | Australia | 2:26.44 |
| 2 | Ágnes Kaczander-Kiss | Hungary | 2:28.05 |
| 3 | Yukari Takemoto | Japan | 2:29.41 |
| 4 | Susanne Niesner | Switzerland | 2:30.87 |
| 5 | Karin Bormann | West Germany | 2:31.19 |
| 6 | Helmi Boxberger | West Germany | 2:33.71 |
| 7 | Roselina Angee | Colombia | 2:45.46 |
| 8 | Ong Mei Lin | Malaysia | 2:48.13 |

### Final

| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time | Notes |
| | Shane Gould | Australia | 2:23.07 | WR |
| | Kornelia Ender | East Germany | 2:23.59 | |
| | Lynn Vidali | United States | 2:24.06 | |
| 4 | Jenny Bartz | United States | 2:24.55 | |
| 5 | Leslie Cliff | Canada | 2:24.83 | |
| 6 | Evelyn Stolze | East Germany | 2:25.90 | |
| 7 | Yoshimi Nishigawa | Japan | 2:26.35 | |
| 8 | Carolyn Woods | United States | 2:27.42 | |
Key: WR = World record