The men's 200 metre butterfly event at the 2004 Olympic Games was contested at the Olympic Aquatic Centre of the Athens Olympic Sports Complex in Athens, Greece on August 16 and 17.

After finishing fifth in Sydney four years earlier, U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps added a second gold to his collection. He touched the wall first in 1:54.04, just 0.11 of a second under his own world record. Japan's Takashi Yamamoto earned a silver medal in an Asian record of 1:54.56. Stephen Parry ended Great Britain's 8-year medal drought with a bronze in 1:55.52. Parry also put his teammate Melanie Marshall on the spot to fulfill her promise of shaving her head if the Brits won a single swimming medal in Athens.

Meanwhile, Poland's Paweł Korzeniowski pulled off a fourth-place effort in a national record of 1:56.00. Defending Olympic champion Tom Malchow rounded out the final to eighth place in 1:57.48, matching his semifinal time in the process.

Other notable swimmers missed the top 8 final, featuring Denys Sylantyev (Ukraine), Justin Norris (Australia), Franck Esposito (France), and Anatoly Polyakov (Russia).

Records Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.

The following new world and Olympic records were set during this competition.

Date Event Name Nationality Time Record August 17 Final Michael Phelps 1:54.04

Results

Heats Rank Heat Lane Name Nationality Time Notes1 4 3 Takashi Yamamoto 1:57.36 Q 5 4 Michael Phelps Q 3 5 5 Paweł Korzeniowski 1:57.45 Q 4 3 4 Tom Malchow 1:57.75 Q 5 3 6 Wu Peng 1:57.96 Q 6 5 3 Justin Norris 1:58.05 Q7 4 4 Franck Esposito 1:58.12 Q 5 6 Ioan Gherghel Q 4 2 Anatoly Polyakov Q 10 5 1 Moss Burmester 1:58.13 Q 11 3 7 Nikolay Skvortsov 1:58.18 Q 12 4 5 Takeshi Matsuda 1:58.23 Q 13 5 8 Juan Veloz 1:58.32 Q 14 3 2 Sergiy Advena 1:58.41 Q 15 3 3 Denys Sylantyev 1:58.44 Q 16 3 5 Stephen Parry 1:58.88 Q 17 4 6 Travis Nederpelt 1:58.93 18 5 2 Helge Meeuw 1:58.96 19 5 7 Kaio Almeida 1:59.23 20 3 1 Jeremy Knowles 1:59.32 21 4 7 Ioannis Drymonakos 1:59.42 3 8 Andrew Livingston 23 2 4 Nathaniel O'Brien 2:00.12 24 2 3 Jeong Doo-hee 2:00.96 25 4 1 Dávid Kolozár 2:01.89 26 2 6 Georgi Palazov 2:02.15 27 2 8 Zoran Lazarovski 2:02.26 28 4 8 Juan Pablo Valdivieso 2:02.79 29 1 4 Gastón Rodríguez 2:04.01 30 2 7 Paulius Andrijauskas 2:04.64 31 2 5 Vladan Marković 2:04.77 32 2 2 Aghiles Slimani 2:04.93 33 1 3 Donny Utomo 2:05.71 34 1 7 Roy Barahona 2:05.99 35 1 2 Sergio Cabrera 2:06.15 36 2 1 Yeh Tzu-cheng 2:06.41 37 1 5 James Walsh 2:06.76 38 1 1 Bertrand Bristol 2:09.07 39 1 6 Sergey Pankov 2:13.06

Semifinals

Semifinal 1 Rank Lane Name Nationality Time Notes 1 8 Stephen Parry 1:55.57 Q 2 4 Michael Phelps 1:55.65 Q 3 5 Tom Malchow 1:57.48 Q 4 6 Anatoly Polyakov 1:57.58 5 3 Justin Norris 1:57.96 6 2 Moss Burmester 1:58.09 7 1 Sergiy Advena 1:58.11 8 7 Takeshi Matsuda 1:58.13

Semifinal 2 Rank Lane Name Nationality Time Notes 1 5 Paweł Korzeniowski 1:56.40 Q 2 4 Takashi Yamamoto 1:56.69 Q 3 3 Wu Peng 1:56.81 Q 4 2 Ioan Gherghel 1:57.31 Q 5 7 Nikolay Skvortsov 1:57.37 Q 6 8 Denys Sylantyev 1:57.93 7 6 Franck Esposito 1:59.00 8 1 Juan Veloz 1:59.78

Final Rank Lane Name Nationality Time Notes 5 Michael Phelps 1:54.04 6 Takashi Yamamoto 1:54.56 AS 4 Stephen Parry 1:55.52 4 3 Paweł Korzeniowski 1:56.00 NR 5 7 Ioan Gherghel 1:56.10 6 2 Wu Peng 1:56.28 7 1 Nikolay Skvortsov 1:57.14 8 8 Tom Malchow 1:57.48

References

External links Official Olympic Report