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

The men's 200 metre individual medley event at the 1972 Olympic Games took place September 3, 1972. 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 | Gunnar Larsson Sweden |
| Silver | Tim McKee United States |
| Bronze | Steve Furniss United States |

## Results
### Heats

Heat 1
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time |
| 1 | Wolfram Sperling | East Germany | 2:12.87 |
| 2 | Thomas Aretz | West Germany | 2:13.19 |
| 3 | Bertram Türpe | East Germany | 2:16.54 |
| 4 | Hsu Tung-hsiung | Chinese Taipei | 2:18.34 |
| 5 | José Joaquín Santibáñez | Mexico | 2:19.47 |
| 6 | Amin Ahmed Adel Youssef | Egypt | 2:24.61 |
Heat 2
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time |
| 1 | András Hargitay | Hungary | 2:10.88 |
| 2 | Bruce Featherston | Australia | 2:15.18 |
| 3 | Clay Evans | Canada | 2:15.19 |
| 4 | David Brumwell | Canada | 2:16.84 |
| 5 | Guðmundur Gíslason | Iceland | 2:20.00 |
| 6 | James Findlay | Australia | 2:20.08 |
| 7 | Ronnie Wong | Hong Kong | 2:34.82 |
Heat 3
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time | Notes |
| 1 | Gunnar Larsson | Sweden | 2:09.70 | |
| 2 | Klaus Steinbach | West Germany | 2:13.84 | |
| 3 | Doug Jamison | Canada | 2:17.71 | |
| 4 | Antônio Azevedo | Brazil | 2:19.41 | |
| 5 | Marian Slavic | Romania | 2:19.98 | |
| 6 | Roy Chan | Singapore | 2:24.43 | |
| 7 | Barry Prime | Great Britain | 2:18.84 | DQ |
Heat 4
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time |
| 1 | Tim McKee | United States | 2:10.44 |
| 2 | Juan Carlos Bello | Peru | 2:11.70 |
| 3 | David Wilkie | Great Britain | 2:13.25 |
| 4 | John McConnochie | New Zealand | 2:15.04 |
| 5 | Andreas Weber | West Germany | 2:16.17 |
| 6 | Neil Martin | Australia | 2:16.24 |
| 7 | François van Kruisdijk | Netherlands | 2:17.14 |
Heat 5
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time |
| 1 | Steve Furniss | United States | 2:09.97 |
| 2 | Hans Ljungberg | Sweden | 2:12.46 |
| 3 | Valentyn Partyka | Soviet Union | 2:13.24 |
| 4 | Ricardo Marmolejo | Mexico | 2:15.82 |
| 5 | Zbigniew Pacelt | Poland | 2:17.35 |
| 6 | Bruno Bassoul | Lebanon | 2:27.78 |
| 7 | Chiang Jin Choon | Malaysia | 2:32.67 |
Heat 6
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time |
| 1 | Gary Hall | United States | 2:09.85 |
| 2 | Mikhail Sukharev | Soviet Union | 2:11.91 |
| 3 | Christian Lietzmann | East Germany | 2:13.42 |
| 4 | Jiro Sasaki | Japan | 2:16.56 |
| 5 | Jairulla Jaitulla | Philippines | 2:17.23 |
| 6 | Lorenzo Marugo | Italy | 2:19.00 |

### Final

| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time | Notes |
| | Gunnar Larsson | Sweden | 2:07.17 | WR |
| | Tim McKee | United States | 2:08.37 | |
| | Steve Furniss | United States | 2:08.45 | |
| 4 | Gary Hall, Sr. | United States | 2:08.49 | |
| 5 | András Hargitay | Hungary | 2:09.66 | |
| 6 | Mikhail Sukharev | Soviet Union | 2:11.78 | |
| 7 | Juan Carlos Bello | Peru | 2:11.87 | |
| 8 | Hans Ljungberg | Sweden | 2:13.56 | |
Key: WR = World record