# Swimming at the 2009 World Aquatics Championships – Men's 400 metre individual medley

The men's 400 metre individual medley event at the 2009 World Aquatics Championships took place on August 2 at the Foro Italico. The heats were held during the morning session and the final were held during the evening session. This swimming event used medley swimming. Because the swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of eight lengths of the pool. The first two lengths were swum using the butterfly stroke, the second pair with the backstroke, the third pair of lengths in breaststroke, and the final two were 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.

## Records

Prior to this competition, the existing world and competition records were as follows:
| World record | Michael Phelps (USA) | 4:03.84 | Beijing, China | 10 August 2008 |
| Championship record | Michael Phelps (USA) | 4:06.22 | Melbourne, Australia | April 1, 2007 |

## Results
### Heats

| Rank | Name | Nationality | Time | Heat | Lane | Notes |
| 1 | Tyler Clary | United States | 4:10.04 | 6 | 4 | |
| 2 | László Cseh | Hungary | 4:10.33 | 7 | 4 | |
| 3 | Gergő Kis | Hungary | 4:10.99 | 7 | 5 | |
| 4 | Ryan Lochte | United States | 4:11.05 | 8 | 4 | |
| 5 | Thomas Haffield | United Kingdom | 4:11.32 | 6 | 3 | NR |
| 6 | Gal Nevo | Israel | 4:11.51 | 7 | 2 | NR |
| 7 | Luca Marin | Italy | 4:12.66 | 8 | 5 | |
| 8 | Thiago Pereira | Brazil | 4:13.05 | 8 | 3 | |
| 9 | Yuya Horihata | Japan | 4:14.43 | 6 | 6 | |
| 10 | Alessio Boggiatto | Italy | 4:14.56 | 6 | 5 | |
| 11 | Mateusz Matczak | Poland | 4:14.57 | 8 | 7 | |
| 12 | Ken Takakuwa | Japan | 4:14.73 | 8 | 6 | |
| 13 | Riaan Schoeman | South Africa | 4:15.50 | 7 | 3 | |
| 14 | Leith Brodie | Australia | 4:15.52 | 4 | 2 | |
| 15 | Chris Christensen | Denmark | 4:16.78 | 5 | 5 | NR |
| 16 | Chad le Clos | South Africa | 4:17.39 | 7 | 1 | |
| 17 | Lewis Smith | United Kingdom | 4:17.56 | 6 | 2 | |
| 18 | Diogo Carvalho | Portugal | 4:18.08 | 6 | 8 | |
| 19 | Liu Weijia | China | 4:18.11 | 6 | 7 | |
| 20 | Dinko Jukić | Austria | 4:18.38 | 8 | 1 | |
| 21 | Yannick Lebherz | Germany | 4:18.43 | 7 | 7 | |
| 22 | Stephen Parkes | Australia | 4:18.60 | 8 | 8 | |
| 23 | Vadym Lepskyy | Ukraine | 4:18.88 | 5 | 7 | |
| 24 | Jordan Hartney | Canada | 4:20.15 | 6 | 1 | |
| 25 | Omar Pinzón | Colombia | 4:20.98 | 7 | 9 | NR |
| 26 | Carlos Almeida | Portugal | 4:21.36 | 5 | 6 | |
| 27 | Dominik Dur | Austria | 4:22.04 | 8 | 0 | |
| 28 | Andrey Krylov | Russia | 4:22.29 | 7 | 6 | |
| 29 | Dmitriy Gordiyenko | Kazakhstan | 4:22.84 | 5 | 3 | |
| 30 | Niksa Roki | Croatia | 4:25.40 | 5 | 4 | |
| 31 | Pedro Pinotes | Angola | 4:25.62 | 4 | 6 | |
| 32 | Miguel Molina | Philippines | 4:26.20 | 6 | 0 | |
| 33 | Henrique Rodrigues | Brazil | 4:26.39 | 7 | 8 | |
| 34 | Vytautas Janušaitis | Lithuania | 4:26.52 | 7 | 0 | |
| 35 | Raphaël Stacchiotti | Luxembourg | 4:26.63 | 4 | 4 | |
| 36 | Taki Mrabet | Tunisia | 4:26.98 | 6 | 9 | |
| 37 | Anders McIntyre | Canada | 4:27.78 | 5 | 2 | |
| 38 | Jan Karel Petric | Slovenia | 4:29.15 | 4 | 1 | |
| 39 | Aleksey Derlyugov | Uzbekistan | 4:29.49 | 4 | 3 | |
| 40 | Ezequiel Trujillo | Mexico | 4:29.81 | 5 | 9 | |
| 41 | Raúl López | Mexico | 4:30.91 | 5 | 0 | |
| 42 | Rehan Poncha | India | 4:31.34 | 3 | 3 | |
| 43 | Chien Jui-Ting | Chinese Taipei | 4:31.99 | 4 | 3 | |
| 44 | Esteban Enderica | Ecuador | 4:33.73 | 3 | 8 | |
| 45 | Benjamin Guzman Blanco | Chile | 4:34.43 | 4 | 8 | |
| 46 | Sobitjon Amilov | Uzbekistan | 4:37.16 | 3 | 2 | |
| 47 | Saeed Malekae Aahtiani | Iran | 4:37.65 | 2 | 5 | |
| 48 | Berrada Morad | Morocco | 4:38.95 | 3 | 9 | NR |
| 49 | Robert Walsh | Philippines | 4:40.57 | 3 | 5 | |
| 50 | Pan Kai-Wen | Chinese Taipei | 4:41.92 | 4 | 5 | |
| 51 | Loai Abdulwahid Tashkandi | Saudi Arabia | 4:42.09 | 2 | 2 | |
| 52 | Rafael Alfaro | El Salvador | 4:42.15 | 2 | 3 | |
| 53 | Ivan Alejandro Enderica | Ecuador | 4:42.62 | 3 | 6 | |
| 54 | Giorgi Mtvralashvili | Georgia | 4:42.65 | 3 | 0 | |
| 55 | Pang Sheng Jun | Singapore | 4:43.20 | 4 | 0 | |
| 56 | Ahmed Jebrel | Palestine | 4:45.73 | 2 | 7 | |
| 57 | Colin Bensadon | Gibraltar | 4:47.14 | 2 | 6 | |
| 58 | Nicholas James | Zimbabwe | 4:48.21 | 1 | 3 | |
| 59 | Vitalii Khudiakov | Kyrgyzstan | 4:52.96 | 2 | 4 | |
| 60 | Radomyos Matjiur | Thailand | 4:59.20 | 3 | 7 | |
| 61 | Bryson Mays | United States Virgin Islands Virgin Islands | 4:59.30 | 2 | 1 | |
| 62 | Benjamin Gabbard | American Samoa | 5:05.88 | 1 | 5 | |
| 63 | Vincent Perry | Tahiti | 5:07.98 | 2 | 8 | |
| – | Elio Berberi | Albania | DNS | 1 | 4 | |
| – | Ryan Nelthropp | Virgin Islands | DNS | 2 | 0 | |
| – | Marzouq Alsalem | Kuwait | DNS | 3 | 1 | |
| – | Cheah Mingzhe Marcus | Singapore | DNS | 3 | 4 | |
| – | Saša Imprić | Croatia | DNS | 4 | 9 | |
| – | Bradley Ally | Barbados | DNS | 8 | 2 | |
| – | Romanos Alyfantis | Greece | DNS | 8 | 9 | |
| – | Sun Han | China | DSQ | 5 | 1 | |
| – | Vasilii Danilov | Kyrgyzstan | DSQ | 5 | 8 | |

### Final

| Rank | Lane | Name | Nationality | Time | Notes |
| | 6 | Ryan Lochte | United States | 4:07.01 | |
| | 4 | Tyler Clary | United States | 4:07.31 | |
| | 5 | László Cseh | Hungary | 4:07.37 | |
| 4 | 8 | Thiago Pereira | Brazil | 4:08.86 | SA |
| 5 | 3 | Gergő Kis | Hungary | 4:10.40 | |
| 6 | 7 | Gal Nevo | Israel | 4:12.33 | |
| 7 | 1 | Luca Marin | Italy | 4:13.63 | |
| 7 | 2 | Thomas Haffield | United Kingdom | 4:13.63 | |