Swimming at the 1900 Summer Olympics – Men's 200 metre freestyle

The men's 200 metre freestyle was a swimming event in the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris. It the shortest freestyle swimming event. It was on 11 August and 12 August 1900. There were 26 swimmers. These swimmers were from 10 different nations. Frederick Lane of Australia won. Zoltán Halmay of Hungary was in 2nd place. Karl Ruberl of Austria was in 3rd place.

## Background

This was the first 200 metres event in the Olympics. This event would also be in the 1904 Olympics. However, in 1904, the distance would be 220 yards. The 200 metres was not in the Olympics until the 1968 Summer Olympics. It has been at every Olympics since 1968.

Frederick Lane of Australia was the favorite swimmer in this race. He had won the British 220 yards championships in 1899. Rob Derbyshire of Great Britain was also a favorite swimmer. He had won the 1898 British championships. Derbyshire and Lane tied the British championships in 1900. However, Derbyshire had a stomach virus. He did not compete in the 1900 games. This easily made Lane the favorite. Zoltán Halmay of Hungary was probably the 2nd famous swimmer.

There were no official records in the 200 metres before this race. There would not be official world records until 1902. Otto Wahle had the fastest time in the first semifinal. His time was 2:35.6. This was the first Olympic record for this event. In the 5th semifinal, Karl Ruberl's time was 2:22.6. This became the new Olympic record.

## Competition

The competition was in 2 rounds. There was the semifinals and the final. There were 5 semifinal rounds. Each semifinal had about 12 swimmers. However, many swimmers quit before the race. This left 4-6 swimmers in each round. The fastest swimmer in each semifinal went to the final. The 5 fastest times also went to the finals. If you went to the finals because you won a round, that would not count as one of the fastest 5 times. This meant that there was 10 swimmers in the finals.

The races were in the Seine. This swimming event used freestyle swimming. This means that the stroke was not regulated.

## Schedule

|Date|Time|Round|
| --- | --- | --- |
|Saturday, 10 August 1900|**10:00**|**Semifinals**|
|Sunday, 12 August 1900|**14:30**|**Final**|

### Semifinals

In the first round, there were 5 semifinals. The winner of each semifinal went to the final The 5 fastest losers also went to the finals. The semifinals were on 11 August.

#### Semifinal 1

|Rank||Swimmer||Nation||Time||Notes|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|1|||2:35.6|,|||||
|2|||2:40.0||||||
|3|||2:50.4||||||
|4|||3:05.8||||||
|5|||3:35.0||||||

#### Semifinal 2

|Rank||Swimmer||Nation||Time||Notes|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|1|||2:38.0||||||
|2|||2:51.0||||||
|3|R. Féret||3:12.2||||||
|4|||3:24.0||||||

#### Semifinal 3

|Rank||Swimmer||Nation||Time||Notes|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|1|||2:59.0||||||
|2|||3:13.0||||||
|3|||3:46.6||||||
|4|Texier||3:47.0||||||
|5|||3:47.6||||||
|—|Pujol||||||||

#### Semifinal 4

|Rank||Swimmer||Nation||Time||Notes|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|1|||3:05.0||||||
|2|||3:10.4||||||
|3|||3:42.0||||||
|4|Richard von Foregger||4:32.0||||||
|5|Jacques Léauté||4:39.4||||||

#### Semifinal 5

|Rank||Swimmer||Nation||Time||Notes|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|1|||2:22.6|,|||||
|2|||2:47.0||||||
|3|||2:47.4||||||
|4|||2:48.0||||||
|5|A. Adam||4:28.0||||||
|6|Ronaux||4:36.4||||||

### Final

The final was on 12 August. Wahle did not start in the final. Lane won easily. He was 6 seconds ahead of Halmay and Ruberl.

|Rank||Swimmer||Nation||Time|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
||||2:25.2||||
||||2:31.4||||
||||2:32.0||||
|4|||2:45.6||||
|5|||2:53.0||||
|6|||2:55.0||||
|7|||2:56.2||||
|8|||2:58.2||||
|9|||Unknown||||
|—|||||||

## Results summary

|Rank||Swimmer||Nation||Semifinals||Final||Notes|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
||||2:59.0|2:25.2|||||||
||||2:38.0|2:31.4|||||||
||||2:22.6|2:32.0|||||||
|4|||2:40.0|2:45.6|||||||
|5|||2:48.0|2:53.0|||||||
|6|||2:47.0|2:55.0|||||||
|7|||3:05.0|2:56.2|||||||
|8|||2:50.4|2:58.2|||||||
|9|||2:47.4|Unknown|||||||
|10|||2:35.6||||||||
|11|||2:51.0|rowspan=16|||||||
|12|||3:05.8||||||||
|13|||3:10.4||||||||
|14|R. Féret||3:12.2||||||||
|15|||3:13.0||||||||
|16|||3:24.0||||||||
|17|||3:35.0||||||||
|18|||3:42.0||||||||
|19|||3:46.6||||||||
|20|Texier||3:47.0||||||||
|21|||3:47.6||||||||
|22|A. Adam||4:28.0||||||||
|23|Richard von Foregger||4:32.0||||||||
|24|Ronaux||4:36.4||||||||
|25|Jacques Léauté||4:39.4||||||||
|26|Pujol||||||||||

## Infobox (olympic event)

- **event**: Men's 200 metre freestyle
- **games**: 1900 Summer
- **image**: Fred Lane 1900.jpg
- **caption**: Gold medalist Frederick Lane
- **venue**: River Seine
- **dates**: August 11 (semifinals)
 August 12 (final)
- **competitors**: 26
- **nations**: 10
- **longnames**: yes
- **win value**: 2:25.2
- **gold**: Frederick Lane
- **goldnoc**: AUS
- **silver**: Zoltán Halmay
- **silvernoc**: HUN
- **bronze**: Karl Ruberl
- **bronzenoc**: AUT
- **next**: Swimming at the 1904 Summer Olympics – Men's 220 yard freestyle, 1904 (220 yd)