The men's 200 metre individual medley event at the 2016 Summer Olympics took place on 10–11 August at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium.

Summary As the most decorated Olympian of all-time, Michael Phelps continued to etch his name into the history records with a first Olympic four-peat in the same individual swimming event. Hanging with some of his career rivals at the final turn, Phelps established a body-length lead over the rest of the field on the freestyle leg to claim his 22nd gold medal and 26th overall in 1:54.66. Trailing almost two seconds behind Phelps, Japan's Kosuke Hagino produced a late surge to snatch the silver with a 1:56.61. Meanwhile, China's Wang Shun took home the bronze in 1:57.05, joining Hagino as the first Asian men to stand on the podium in this event.

Hagino's teammate Hiromasa Fujimori missed out of the medals with a fourth-place time in 1:57.21. Phelps' longtime rival and twelve-time medalist Ryan Lochte seized a brief lead into the halfway point with a signature backstroke swim, but faded down the home stretch to fifth, and missed out on his fourth straight medal in this event with a 1:57.47, a hundredth of a second ahead of Germany's Philip Heintz (1:57.48). Backed by the raucous home crowd, Brazilian medal favorite Thiago Pereira, who got off to an early lead with a powerful butterfly effort, slipped to seventh with a 1:58.02. Great Britain's Daniel Wallace posted an eighth-place finish of 1:58.54 to round out the field.

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

Competition format

The competition consisted of three rounds: heats, semifinals, and a final. The swimmers with the best 16 times in the heats advanced to the semifinals. The swimmers with the best 8 times in the semifinals advanced to the final. Swim-offs were used as necessary to break ties for advancement to the next round.

Results

Heats Rank Heat Lane Name Nationality Time Notes 1 2 4 Ryan Lochte 1:57.38 Q 2 2 6 Philip Heintz 1:57.59 Q, NR 3 4 4 Michael Phelps 1:58.41 Q 4 2 5 Henrique Rodrigues 1:58.56 Q 5 4 5 Thiago Pereira 1:58.63 Q 6 3 4 Kosuke Hagino 1:58.79 Q 7 4 3 Hiromasa Fujimori 1:58.88 Q 8 3 5 Wang Shun 1:58.98 Q 9 3 6 Andreas Vazaios 1:59.33 Q 10 4 6 Simon Sjödin 1:59.41 Q 11 3 3 Daniel Wallace 1:59.44 Q12 2 1 Alexis Santos 1:59.67 Q 3 2 Jérémy Desplanches Q 4 2 Eduardo Solaeche Q 15 4 7 Ieuan Lloyd 1:59.74 Q 16 4 8 Bradlee Ashby 1:59.77 Q 17 3 1 Gal Nevo 1:59.80 18 3 8 Semen Makovich 1:59.86 19 4 1 Diogo Carvalho 2:00.17 20 2 2 Travis Mahoney 2:00.18 21 1 3 Raphaël Stacchiotti 2:00.21 22 1 4 Hu Yixuan 2:00.70 23 1 5 Emmanuel Vanluchene 2:01.36 24 1 6 Uvis Kalniņš 2:02.34 25 2 8 Mohamed Hussein 2:02.36 26 1 7 Marko Blaževski 2:02.54 27 1 1 Ahmed Mathlouthi 2:04.95 2 3 Thomas Fraser-Holmes 2 7 Federico Turrini 3 7 Dávid Verrasztó

Semifinals

Semifinal 1 Rank Lane Name Nationality Time Notes 1 3 Kosuke Hagino 1:57.38 Q 2 6 Wang Shun 1:58.12 Q 3 4 Philip Heintz 1:58.85 Q 4 5 Henrique Rodrigues 1:59.23 5 7 Alexis Santos 2:00.08 6 8 Bradlee Ashby 2:00.45 7 1 Eduardo Solaeche 2:00.47 8 2 Simon Sjödin 2:00.81

Semifinal 2 Rank Lane Name Nationality Time Notes 1 5 Michael Phelps 1:55.78 Q 2 4 Ryan Lochte 1:56.28 Q 3 3 Thiago Pereira 1:57.11 Q 4 7 Daniel Wallace 1:57.97 Q 5 6 Hiromasa Fujimori 1:58.20 Q 6 8 Ieuan Lloyd 1:59.49 7 2 Andreas Vazaios 1:59.54 8 1 Jérémy Desplanches 2:00.38

Final Rank Lane Name Nationality Time Notes 4 Michael Phelps 1:54.66 6 Kosuke Hagino 1:56.61 7 Wang Shun 1:57.05 4 1 Hiromasa Fujimori 1:57.21 5 5 Ryan Lochte 1:57.47 6 8 Philip Heintz 1:57.48 NR 7 3 Thiago Pereira 1:58.02 8 2 Daniel Wallace 1:58.54

References