# Swimming at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Men's 4 × 100 metre medley relay

The men's 4 × 100 metre medley relay event at the 1972 Olympic Games took place on September 4. This swimming event uses medley swimming as a relay. Because an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, each of the four swimmers completed two lengths of the pool, each using a different stroke. The first on each team used the backstroke, the second used the breaststroke, the third used the butterfly stroke, and the final swimmer used freestyle (restricted to not allow any of the first three strokes to be used, though nearly all swimmers use front crawl regardless).
The first swimmer must touch the wall before the next can leave the starting block, and so forth; timing of the starts is thus important.

## Medalists

| Gold | Silver | Bronze |
| United States Mike Stamm Tom Bruce Mark Spitz Jerry Heidenreich | East Germany Roland Matthes Klaus Katzur Hartmut Flöckner Lutz Unger | Canada Erik Fish William Mahony Bruce Robertson Robert Kasting |

## Results
### Heats

Heat 1
| Place | Swimmers | Time |
| 1 | Igor Grivennikov, Viktor Stulikov, Viktor Sharygin, Viktor Aboimov (URS) | 3:56.57 |
| 2 | Bill Kennedy, Bill Mahony, Bruce Robertson, Bob Kasting (CAN) | 3:57.05 |
| 3 | László Cseh Sr., Sándor Szabó, András Hargitay, István Szentirmay (HUN) | 3:59.86 |
| 4 | Jean-Paul Berjeau, Roger-Philippe Menu, Alain Mosconi, Michel Rousseau (FRA) | 4:00.50 |
| 5 | José Joaquín Santibáñez, Felipe Muñoz, Hugo Valencia, Guillermo García (MEX) | 4:05.61 |
Heat 2
| Place | Swimmers | Time | Notes |
| 1 | Roland Matthes, Klaus Katzur, Hartmut Flöckner, Lutz Unger (GDR) | 3:55.23 | |
| 2 | Rômulo Arantes Filho, José Sylvio Fiolo, Sérgio Waismann, José Roberto Aranha (BRA) | 3:58.56 | |
| 3 | Tadashi Honda (1:00.23) NR, Nobutaka Taguchi, Yasuhiro Komazaki, Jiro Sasaki (JPN) | 3:59.55 | NR |
| 4 | Andreas Weber, Walter Kusch, Lutz Stoklasa, Klaus Steinbach (FRG) | 4:00.56 | |
| 5 | Enrique Melo, Pedro Balcells, Arturo Lang-Lenton, Jorge Comas (ESP) | 4:03.73 | |
| 6 | Gerardo Rosario, Amman Jalmaani, Carlos Brosas, Luis Ayesa (PHI) | 4:13.62 | |
Heat 3
| Place | Swimmers | Time |
| 1 | Mitch Ivey, John Hencken, Gary Hall, David Fairbank (USA) | 3:51.98 |
| 2 | Colin Cunningham, David Wilkie, John Mills, Malcolm Windeatt (GBR) | 3:58.97 |
| 3 | Brad Cooper, Paul Jarvie, Neil Rogers, Mike Wenden (AUS) | 4:00.16 |
| 4 | Anders Sandberg, Gunnar Larsson, Hans Ljungberg, Anders Bellbring (SWE) | 4:06.67 |
| 5 | Piotr Dłucik, Cezary Śmiglak, Andrzej Chudziński, Zbigniew Pacelt (POL) | 4:07.87 |
| 6 | Sarun Van, Sokhon Yi, Chhay-Kheng Nhem, Samnang Prak (KHM) | 4:20.71 |

### Final

| Place | Swimmers | Time | Notes |
| | Mike Stamm, Tom Bruce, Mark Spitz, Jerry Heidenreich (USA) | 3:48.16 | WR |
| | Roland Matthes, Klaus Katzur, Hartmut Flöckner, Lutz Unger (GDR) | 3:52.12 | |
| | Erik Fish, Bill Mahony, Bruce Robertson, Bob Kasting (CAN) | 3:52.26 | |
| 4 | Igor Grivennikov, Nikolay Pankin, Viktor Sharygin, Vladimir Bure (URS) | 3:53.26 | |
| 5 | Rômulo Arantes Filho, José Sylvio Fiolo, Sérgio Waismann, José Roberto Aranha (BRA) | 3:57.89 | |
| 6 | Tadashi Honda (59.83) NR, Nobutaka Taguchi, Yasuhiro Komazaki, Jiro Sasaki (JPN) | 3:58.23 | NR |
| 7 | Colin Cunningham, David Wilkie, John Mills, Malcolm Windeatt (GBR) | 3:58.82 | |
| 8 | László Cseh Sr., Sándor Szabó, István Szentirmay, Attila Császári (HUN) | 3:59.07 | |