Swimming at the 1988 Summer Olympics – Women's 200 metre freestyle

Swimming events at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Freestyle
50 m		men		women
100 m		men		women
200 m		men		women
400 m		men		women
800 m				women
1500 m		men
Backstroke
100 m		men		women
200 m		men		women
Breaststroke
100 m		men		women
200 m		men		women
Butterfly
100 m		men		women
200 m		men		women
Individual medley
200 m		men		women
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 freestyle at the 1988 Summer Olympics, was contested on September 20 (preliminaries) and September 21 (finals).

Silvia Poll's silver medal was Costa Rica's first Olympic medal ever.

Records

The existing World and Olympic records at the time of the competition were:

World record	Heike Friedrich (GDR)	1:57.55	East Berlin, East Germany	18 June 1986
Olympic record	Barbara Krause (GDR)	1:58.33	Moscow, Soviet Union	24 July 1980

Finals

A Final

Place	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
	Heike Friedrich	East Germany	1:57.65	OR[1]
	Silvia Poll	Costa Rica	1:58.67
	Manuela Stellmach	East Germany	1:59.01
4th	Mary Wayte	United States	1:59.04
5th	Natalia Trefilova	Soviet Union	1:59.24
6th	Mitzi Kremer	United States	2:00.23
7th	Stephanie Ortwig	West Germany	2:00.73
8th	Cécile Prunier	France	2:02.88

B Final

Place	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
9th	Patricia Noall	Canada	2:00.77
10th	Ruth Gilfillan	Great Britain	2:01.66
11th	Mette Jacobsen	Denmark	2:01.84
12th	Liliana Dobrescu	Romania	2:01.98
13th	Stela Pura	Romania	2:02.30
14th	Chikako Nakamori	Japan	2:02.31
15th	Birgit Lohberg-Schulz	West Germany	2:02.32
16th	Zhuang Yong	China	2:14.23

Preliminary heats

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Heike Friedrich	East Germany	1:59.02	q-A
2	Silvia Poll	Costa Rica	1:59.22	q-A
3	Mary Wayte	United States	1:59.50	q-A
4	Manuela Stellmach	East Germany	2:00.30	q-A
5	Natalia Trefilova	Soviet Union	2:00.54	q-A
6	Stephanie Ortwig	West Germany	2:00.66	q-A
7	Mitzi Kremer	United States	2:01.45	q-A
8	Cécile Prunier	France	2:01.60	q-A
9	Chikako Nakamori	Japan	2:01.76	q-B
10	Mette Jacobsen	Denmark	2:01.80	q-B
11	Luminita Dobrescu	Romania	2:01.93	q-B
12	Ruth Gilfillan	Great Britain	2:02.11	q-B
13	Stela Pura	Romania	2:02.26	q-B
14	Patricia Noall	Canada	2:02.31	q-B
15	Zhuang Yong	China	2:02.40	q-B
16	Birgit Lohberg-Schulz	West Germany	2:02.77	q-B
17	Adriana van der Plaats	Netherlands	2:03.02
18	Isabelle Arnould	Belgium	2:03.32
18	Suzanne Nilsson	Sweden	2:03.32
20	Sheridan Burge-Lopez	Australia	2:03.42
21	June Croft	Great Britain	2:03.63
22	Karin Brienesse	Netherlands	2:04.36
23	Silvia Persi	Italy	2:04.40
24	Annette Jorgensen	Denmark	2:04.71
25	Patrícia Amorim	Brazil	2:04.74
26	Susie Baumer	Australia	2:04.82
27	Huda Abdullah Nurul	Malaysia	2:04.85
28	Jane Kerr	Canada	2:04.92
29	Kaori Sasaki	Japan	2:04.92
30	Senda Gharbi	Tunisia	2:06.60
31	Karen Dieffenthaller	Trinidad and Tobago	2:07.09	NR
32	Bryndís Ólafsdóttir	Iceland	2:07.11
33	Ritajean Garay	Puerto Rico	2:07.44
34	Natasha Aguilar	Costa Rica	2:10.22
35	Patricia Kohlmann	Mexico	2:10.36
36	Fenella Ng	Hong Kong	2:10.43
37	Eum-Jung Kim	South Korea	2:10.85
38	Hui-Chien Chang	Chinese Taipei	2:11.50
39	Joo-Li Park	South Korea	2:11.53
40	Hong Olan	China	2:12.44
41	Catherine Fogarty	Zimbabwe	2:13.44
42	Cee Kay Hung	Hong Kong	2:13.61
43	Angela Birch	Fiji	2:16.79
44	Cina Munch	Fiji	2:18.45

References

• • Swimming World Magazine, November 1988.