# Swimming at the 2001 World Aquatics Championships – Men's 400 metre freestyle

The men's 400 metre freestyle event at the 2001 World Aquatics Championships took place 22 July. Both the heats and final were held on 22 July.
In the final, Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe broke his own world record with a time of 3:40.17, bettering his previous record of 3:40.59 and successfully defending his world title. At the 200 metre mark in this race, Thorpe was over a second outside world record pace but had a split of 53.78 in the last 100 metres to break the record. This was the first of six gold medals he would win, and the first of four world records he would set at these championships.

## Records

Prior to the competition, the existing world and championship records were as follows:
| World record | Ian Thorpe (AUS) | 3:40.59 | Sydney, Australia | 16 September 2000 |
| Championship record | Kieren Perkins (AUS) | 3:43.80 | Rome, Italy | 9 September 1994 |
The following record was established during the competition:
| Date | Round | Name | Nationality | Time | Record |
| 22 July | Final | Ian Thorpe | Australia | 3:40.17 | WR |

## Results
### Preliminaries

| Rank | Swimmer | Nation | Time | Notes |
| 1 | Grant Hackett | Australia | 3:44.88 | Q |
| 2 | Ian Thorpe | Australia | 3:45.22 | Q |
| 3 | Emiliano Brembilla | Italy | 3:46.45 | Q |
| 4 | Massimiliano Rosolino | Italy | 3:47.92 | Q |
| 5 | Chad Carvin | United States | 3:49.93 | Q |
| 6 | Shunichi Fujita | Japan | 3:50.36 | Q |
| 7 | Spyridon Gianniotis | Greece | 3:50.98 | Q |
| 8 | Dragoș Coman | Romania | 3:50.99 | Q |
| 9 | Athanasios Oikonomou | Greece | 3:51.64 | |
| 10 | Jacob Carstensen | Denmark | 3:52.23 | |
| 11 | Rick Say | Canada | 3:52.55 | |
| 12 | James Salter | Great Britain | 3:52.72 | |
| 13 | Alexey Filipets | Russia | 3:52.88 | |
| 14 | Heiko Hell | Germany | 3:54.06 | |
| 15 | Edward Sinclair | Great Britain | 3:54.52 | |
| 16 | Robert Margalis | United States | 3:54.65 | |
| 17 | Han Kyu-Chul | South Korea | 3:54.82 | |
| 18 | Nicolas Rostoucher | France | 3:55.24 | |
| 19 | Masato Hirano | Japan | 3:55.91 | |
| 20 | Andrew Hurd | Canada | 3:56.45 | |
| 21 | Květoslav Svoboda | Czech Republic | 3:56.59 | |
| 22 | Ricardo Monasterio | Venezuela | 3:56.96 | |
| 23 | Leonardo Salinas | Mexico | 4:00.47 | |
| 24 | Stepan Ganzey | Russia | 4:01.01 | |
| 25 | Jorge Carral | Mexico | 4:01.10 | |
| 26 | Shilo Ayalon | Israel | 4:02.06 | |
| 27 | Giancarlo Zolezzi | Chile | 4:03.19 | |
| 28 | Jiang Bing-Ru | Chinese Taipei | 4:07.55 | |
| 29 | Mohammad Naeem Masri | Syria | 4:19.60 | |
| 30 | Hsu Kuo-Tung | Chinese Taipei | 4:21.87 | |
| 31 | Barnsley Albert | Seychelles | 4:25.09 | |
| 32 | Mumtaz Ahmad | Pakistan | 4:32.10 | |
| 33 | Semen Danilov | Kyrgyzstan | 4:35.17 | |
| 34 | Kin Duenas | Guam | 4:38.72 | |
| 35 | Dean Palacios | Northern Mariana Islands | 4:38.99 | |
| 36 | Mark Unpingco | Guam | 4:41.92 | |
| 37 | Zaid Saeed | Iraq | 4:50.64 | |
| – | Thamer Al Shamroukh | Kuwait | DNS | |

### Final

| Rank | Name | Nationality | Time | Notes |
| | Ian Thorpe | Australia | 3:40.17 | WR |
| | Grant Hackett | Australia | 3:42.51 | |
| | Emiliano Brembilla | Italy | 3:45.11 | |
| 4 | Massimiliano Rosolino | Italy | 3:45.41 | |
| 5 | Chad Carvin | United States | 3:50.11 | |
| 6 | Dragoș Coman | Romania | 3:50.13 | |
| 7 | Spyridon Gianniotis | Greece | 3:52.09 | |
| 8 | Shunichi Fujita | Japan | 3:52.11 | |
Key: WR = World record