Swimming at the 1968 Summer Olympics – Men's 400 metre individual medley

The men's 400 metre individual medley event at the 1968 Summer Olympics took place on 22–23 October. This swimming event used medley swimming. Because an Olympic size 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.

Medalists

Gold	Charlie Hickcox  United States
Silver	Gary Hall, Sr.  United States
Bronze	Michael Holthaus  West Germany

Results

Heats

Heat 1

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Note
1	Andrey Dunayev	Soviet Union	5:01.9
2	Martyn Woodroffe	Great Britain	5:03.9
3	Eduardo Alanís	Mexico	5:14.9
4	Jacek Krawczyk	Poland	5:15.1
5	José Martínez	Cuba		DQ

Heat 2

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Note
1	Greg Buckingham	United States	4:57.3
2	Rafael Hernández	Mexico	5:01.1
3	Hans Ljungberg	Sweden	5:06.1
4	Vladimir Kravchenko	Soviet Union	5:08.7
5	Tomas Becerra	Colombia	5:09.7
6	Miguel Torres	Spain	5:12.7
7	Guðmundur Gíslason	Iceland	5:20.2
8	Raúl Villagómez	Mexico	5:24.7

Heat 3

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Note
1	Charlie Hickcox	United States	4:56.2
2	Reinhard Merkel	West Germany	5:00.6
3	Bernhard Mock	West Germany	5:07.1
4	Péter Lázár	Hungary	5:10.6
5	Angel Chakarov	Bulgaria	5:10.9
6	Ken Campbell	Canada	5:19.6
7	Gershon Shefa	Israel	5:22.6
8	Lee Tong-shing	Chinese Taipei	5:50.0

Heat 4

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Note
1	Mike Holthaus	West Germany	5:00.8
2	George Smith	Canada	5:04.4
3	Yulyan Rusev	Bulgaria	5:07.0
4	Lars Kraus Jensen	Denmark	5:12.7
5	Zbigniew Pacelt	Poland	5:18.6
6	Raymond Terrell	Great Britain	5:19.5
7	Francisco Ramis	Puerto Rico	5:30.9
8	Antonio Cruz	Guatemala	5:31.1

Heat 5

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Note
1	Gary Hall	United States	4:56.2
2	Sandy Gilchrist	Canada	4:57.5
3	Karl Byrom	Australia	5:11.9
4	Michele D'Oppido	Italy	5:16.4
5	Jacques Henrard	Belgium	5:17.0
6	Olle Ferm	Sweden	5:18.9

Final

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
	Charlie Hickcox	United States	4:48.4
	Gary Hall, Sr.	United States	4:48.7
	Michael Holthaus	West Germany	4:51.4
4	Greg Buckingham	United States	4:51.4
5	Sandy Gilchrist	Canada	4:56.7
6	Reinhard Merkel	West Germany	4:59.8
7	Andrey Dunayev	Soviet Union	5:00.3
8	Rafael Hernández	Mexico	5:04.3