The men's 1,500 metre freestyle event at the 2012 Summer Olympics took place on 3–4 August at the London Aquatics Centre in London, United Kingdom.
Shaking off a potential false start due to fan noise, China's Sun Yang put together a marvelous swim with a relentless attack on his world record to strike a long-distance freestyle double at the Olympic Games for the first time, since the Soviet Union's Vladimir Salnikov did so in 1980. Leading from the start, Sun quickly dropped two seconds under a world-record pace, as he pulled away further from the rest of the field to smash his own standard with a stunning gold-medal time in 14:31.02. Trailing behind the leader by 8.61 seconds on a dominant fashion, Canada's Ryan Cochrane held off a close battle from Tunisia's defending champion Oussama Mellouli for the silver in a Canadian record of 14:39.63. Meanwhile, Mellouli faded down the stretch to pick up a bronze in 14:40.31, edging out of South Korea's Park Tae-hwan (14:50.61) by a wide margin of 10.3 seconds.
Italian teenager Gregorio Paltrinieri finished fifth in 14:51.92, while U.S. swimmer Connor Jaeger posted a sixth-place time of 14:52.99. Poland's Mateusz Sawrymowicz (14:54.32) and Great Britain's Daniel Fogg (15:00.76) rounded out a historic finale.
Notable swimmers missed the final including Jaeger's teammate Andrew Gemmell, Ukraine's Sergiy Frolov, Hungary's Gergő Kis, and British home favorite David Davies, bronze medalist in Athens eight years earlier.
Records At the start of this event, the existing World and Olympic records were as follows.
The following records were established during the competition:
Date Event Name Nationality Time Record August 4 Final Sun Yang 14:31.02
Results
Heats
Rank Heat Lane Name Nationality Time Notes 1 4 4 Sun Yang 14:43.25 Q 2 4 7 Oussama Mellouli 14:46.23 Q 3 3 4 Ryan Cochrane 14:49.31 Q 4 2 5 Gregorio Paltrinieri 14:50.11 Q 5 2 3 Daniel Fogg 14:56.12 Q 6 3 5 Park Tae-hwan 14:56.89 Q 7 3 3 Connor Jaeger 14:57.56 Q 8 2 6 Mateusz Sawrymowicz 14:57.59 Q 9 4 3 Andrew Gemmell 14:59.05 10 4 1 Sergiy Frolov 14:59.19 NR 11 4 6 Job Kienhuis 15:03.16 12 3 7 Gergely Gyurta 15:04.22 13 2 2 Gabriele Detti 15:06.22 14 3 2 Damien Joly 15:08.50 15 3 1 Dai Jun 15:13.90 16 3 6 David Davies 15:14.77 17 4 5 Pál Joensen 15:18.42 18 4 8 Jarrod Poort 15:20.82 19 2 4 Gergő Kis 15:21.74 20 4 2 Anthony Pannier 15:24.08 21 2 7 Heerden Herman 15:25.71 22 1 4 Arturo Pérez Vertti Ferrer 15:25.91 23 2 8 Alejandro Gómez 15:27.38 24 1 7 Jan Micka 15:29.34 25 1 6 Anton Sveinn McKee 15:29.40 NR 26 1 5 Ediz Yıldırımer 15:29.97 27 2 1 Matias Koski 15:34.80 28 1 3 Ventsislav Aydarski 15:34.86 29 3 8 Juan Martín Pereyra 15:36.72 30 1 2 Uladzimir Zhyharau 15:48.67 31 1 1 Ullalmath Gagan 16:31.14
Final Rank Lane Name Nationality Time Notes 4 Sun Yang 14:31.02 3 Ryan Cochrane 14:39.63 AM 5 Oussama Mellouli 14:40.31 4 7 Park Tae-hwan 14:50.61 5 6 Gregorio Paltrinieri 14:51.92 6 1 Connor Jaeger 14:52.99 7 8 Mateusz Sawrymowicz 14:54.32 8 2 Daniel Fogg 15:00.76
References
External links