Swimming at the 1964 Summer Olympics – Women's 200 metre breaststroke

Women's 200 metre breaststroke at the Games of the XVIII Olympiad
Venue	Yoyogi National Gymnasium
Date	11 October (heats) 12 October (final)
Competitors	27 from 15 nations
Winning time	2:46.4 (OR)
Medalists
Galina Prozumenshchikova   Soviet Union   Claudia Kolb   United States   Svetlana Babanina   Soviet Union

Swimming at the 1964 Summer Olympics
Freestyle
100 m	men	women
400 m	men	women
1500 m	men
Backstroke
100 m		women
200 m	men
Breaststroke
200 m	men	women
Butterfly
100 m		women
200 m	men
Individual medley
400 m	men	women
Freestyle relay
4×100 m	men	women
4×200 m	men
Medley relay
4×100 m	men	women

The women's 200 metre breaststroke event, included in the swimming competition at the 1964 Summer Olympics, took place on October 11–12, at the Yoyogi National Gymnasium. In this event, swimmers covered four lengths of the 50-metre (160 ft) Olympic-sized pool employing the breaststroke. It was the ninth appearance of the event, which first appeared at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris. A total of 27 competitors from 15 nations participated in the event.^[1] Soviet Union's Galina Prozumenshchikova and Svetlana Babanina won their country's first ever medals in this event, with a gold and bronze medal respectively. Claudia Kolb's silver medal was the United States' second ever medal in this event, after Agnes Geraghty's silver in the inaugural event in 1924. In the heats, Australian Christine Barnetson was disqualified for an incorrect breaststroke, and Hungarian Márta Egerváry withdrew from the competition.^[2]

Records

Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were:

World record	Galina Prozumenshchikova (URS)	2:45.4 s	Berlin, East Germany	17 May 1964
Olympic record	Anita Lonsbrough (GBR)	2:49.5 s	Rome, Italy	27 August 1960

The following records were established during the competition:

Date	Round	Name	Nationality	Time	OR	WR
11 October	Heat 2	Bärbel Grimmer	United Team of Germany	2:48.6	OR
11 October	Heat 3	Svetlana Babanina	Soviet Union	2:48.3	OR
12 October	Final	Galina Prozumenshchikova	Soviet Union	2:46.4	OR

Results

Heats

Rank	Heat	Lane[3]	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	3	1	Babanina, SvetlanaSvetlana Babanina	Soviet Union	2:48.3	Q, OR[4]
2	2	4	Grimmer, BärbelBärbel Grimmer	United Team of Germany	2:48.6	Q, OR[4]
3	3	7	Mitchell, StellaStella Mitchell	Great Britain	2:48.8	Q
4	2	1	Prozumenshchikova, GalinaGalina Prozumenshchikova	Soviet Union	2:49.0	Q
5	3	6	Kolb, ClaudiaClaudia Kolb	United States	2:49.7	Q
6	3	3	Küper, UrsulaUrsula Küper	United Team of Germany	2:50.1	Q
7	4	2	Slattery, JillJill Slattery	Great Britain	2:50.2	Q
8	1	1	Bimolt, KlenieKlenie Bimolt	Netherlands	2:50.7	Q
9	1	7	Ruygrok, MargueriteMarguerite Ruygrok	Australia	2:53.1
10	1	6	Urselmann, WiltrudWiltrud Urselmann	United Team of Germany	2:53.2
11	4	1	Haddon, VivienVivien Haddon	New Zealand	2:53.4
12	4	3	Looijs, TruusTruus Looijs	Netherlands	2:54.5
13	2	7	Enfield, JacquelineJacqueline Enfield	Great Britain	2:54.9
14	1	4	Hazleton, TammyTammy Hazleton	United States	2:55.0
15	2	5	Kok, GrettaGretta Kok	Netherlands	2:55.4
16	3	5	Castañe, IsabelIsabel Castañe	Spain	2:55.7
17	1	3	Yamamoto, NorikoNoriko Yamamoto	Japan	2:57.0
18	4	6	Nitta, SandraSandra Nitta	United States	2:58.4
19	4	5	Filippovits, ChristlChristl Filippovits	Austria	2:59.2
20	3	4	McGill, LindaLinda McGill	Australia	2:59.4
21	4	7	Morizane, YoshikoYoshiko Morizane	Japan	2:59.9
22	2	6	Peper, SusanaSusana Peper	Argentina	3:00.0
23	1	5	Kovács, ZsuzsaZsuzsa Kovács	Hungary	3:06.7
24	3	2	Jolly, MarnyMarny Jolly	Malaysia	3:11.0
25	1	2	Harding, MargaretMargaret Harding	Puerto Rico	3:16.0
26	4	4	Li Hin YuLi Hin Yu	Hong Kong	3:22.2
27	2	3	Barnetson, ChristineChristine Barnetson	Australia	—	DSQ[5]

Final

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
01 !	6	Prozumenshchikova, GalinaGalina Prozumenshchikova	Soviet Union	2:46.4	OR[6]
02 !	2	Kolb, ClaudiaClaudia Kolb	United States	2:47.6
03 !	4	Babanina, SvetlanaSvetlana Babanina	Soviet Union	2:48.6
4	3	Mitchell, StellaStella Mitchell	Great Britain	2:49.0
5	1	Slattery, JillJill Slattery	Great Britain	2:49.6
6	5	Grimmer, BärbelBärbel Grimmer	United Team of Germany	2:51.0
7	8	Bimolt, KlenieKlenie Bimolt	Netherlands	2:51.3
8	7	Küper, UrsulaUrsula Küper	United Team of Germany	2:53.9

Sources

• "The Games of the XVIII Olympiad Tokyo 1964: The Official Report of the Organising Committee" (PDF). Volume Two, Part 2. Organizing Committee of the Games of the XVIII Olympiad Tokyo. 1964. Retrieved 2 July 2012. 
• "Swimming at the 1964 Tokyo Summer Games: Women's 200 metres Breaststroke". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference, LLC. Retrieved 2 July 2012. 

References