# Swimming at the 2001 World Aquatics Championships – Women's 4 × 200 metre freestyle relay

The Women's 4x200m Freestyle Relay event at the 11th FINA World Aquatics Championships swam 24 July 2001 in Fukuoka, Japan. Preliminary heats swam in the morning session, with the top-8 finishers advancing to swim again in the Final that evening.
In the final, the Australian team originally finished first, with the United States second, and Great Britain taking the bronze. However, soon after finishing, the American team was disqualified for an early changeover, and following that, the Australians were also disqualified for entering the pool before all other teams had finished. Both appealed their disqualifications, with America initially being reinstated due to video evidence. However, the original decisions were eventually upheld meaning that Great Britain took the gold medal, Germany the silver, and Japan the bronze.
At the start of the event, the World (WR) and Championship (CR) records were:
* WR: 7:55.47 swum by East Germany on August 18, 1987, in Strasbourg, France.
* CR: 7:57.96 swum by China on September 5, 1994, in Rome, Italy

## Results
### Final

| Rank | Nation | Swimmers | Time | Notes |
| 1 | Great Britain | Nicola Jackson (2:00.05), Janine Belton (2:00.64), Karen Legg (1:58.95), Karen Pickering (1:59.05) | 7:58.69 | |
| 2 | Germany | Silvia Szalai (2:00.39), Sara Harstick (1:59.48), Hannah Stockbauer (1:59.06), Meike Freitag (2:02.42) | 8:01.35 | |
| 3 | Japan | Maki Mita (2:00.38), Tomoko Hagiwara (1:59.25), Tomoko Nagai (2:00.98), Eri Yamanoi (2:02.36) | 8:02.97 | |
| 4 | Canada | Marianne Limpert (2:01.13), Jessica Deglau (2:00.65), Sophie Simard (2:02.47), Laura Nicholls (2:02.17) | 8:06.42 | |
| 5 | Spain | Laura Roca (2:01.77), Tatiana Rouba (2:01.75), Lidia Elizalde (2:01.91), Paula Carballido (2:01.12) | 8:06.55 | |
| 6 | Italy | Cecilia Vianini (2:01.59), Cristina Chiuso (2:02.27), Sara Parise (2:01.76), Luisa Striani (2:02.94) | 8:08.56 | |
| 7 | Australia | Elka Graham (1:58.54), Linda MacKenzie (2:00.15), Petria Thomas (1:59.15), Giaan Rooney (1:58.16) | DQ | 7:56.00 |
| 8 | USA | Natalie Coughlin (1:59.94), Cristina Teuscher (1:58.54), Julie Hardt 1:59.70, Diana Munz (1:58.35) | DQ | 7:56.53 |

### Preliminaries

| Rank | Nation | Swimmers | Time | Notes |
| 1 | Great Britain | Nicola Jackson (2:00.58), Janine Belton (2:00.99), Karen Legg (1:59.15), Karen Pickering (2:02.24) | 8:02.96 | q |
| 2 | Australia | Petria Thomas (2:00.67), Kasey Giteau (2:02.90) Linda MacKenzie (1:59.79), Lori Munz (2:00.52) | 8:03.88 | q |
| 3 | Germany | Silvia Szalai (1:59.74), Alessa Ries (2:03.41), Sara Harstick (1:59.60), Meike Freitag (2:02.08) | 8:04.83 | q |
| 4 | United States | Shelly Ripple (2:01.47), Coleen Lanne (2:03.24) Julie Hardt (1:59.25), Maritza Correia (2:01.06) | 8:05.02 | q |
| 5 | Japan | Tomoko Nagai (2:01.90), Maki Mita (2:00.00) Tomoko Hagiwara (2:01.18), Eri Yamanoi (2:02.68) | 8:05.76 | q |
| 6 | Italy | Sara Parise (2:02.65), Cristina Chiuso (2:01.95), Luisa Striani (2:01.29), Cecilia Vianini (2:00.34) | 8:06.23 | q |
| 7 | Canada | Marianne Limpert (2:01.28), Jessica Deglau (2:00.51), Sophie Simard (2:02.34), Laura Nicholls (2:02.35) | 8:06.48 | q |
| 8 | Spain | Laura Roca (2:00.77), Tatiana Rouba (2:03.10), Lidia Elizalde (2:02.14), Paula Carballido (2:01.98) | 8:07.99 | q |
| 9 | China | Zhu Yingwen (2:01.96), Chen Hua (2:03.24) Xu Yanwei (2:02.22), Yang Yu (2:00.95) | 8:08.37 | |
| 10 | Russia | Olga Bogoslovenko (2:05.14), Irina Oufimtseva (2:00.62) Alexandra Malanina (2:03.70), Nadezhda Chemezova (2:03.22) | 8:12.68 | |
| 11 | Romania | Camelia Potec (2:00.36), Simona Păduraru (2:02.06) Florina Herea (2:05.25), Valentina Brat (2:12.89) | 8:20.56 | |
| 12 | Chinese Taipei | Lin Chi-Chan (2:06.53), Kuan Chia-Hsien (2:09.82) Yang Chin-Kuei (2:14.56), Sung Yi-Chien (2:12.03) | 8:42.94 | |
| 13 | Singapore | Christel Bouvron (2:08.03), Nicolette Teo (2:13.45) Rebecca Heng (2:16.00), U-nice Chan (2:10.50) | 8:47.98 | |