Swimming at the 1988 Summer Olympics – Men's 4 × 200 metre freestyle relay
The men's 4×200 metre freestyle relay event at the 1988 Summer Olympics took place between 20–21 September at the Jamsil Indoor Swimming Pool in Seoul, South Korea.
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 |
| 21 September | Final | Troy Dalbey Matt Cetlinski Doug Gjertsen Matt Biondi | 7:12.51 |
Results
Heats
Rule: The eight fastest teams advance to the final.| Rank | Heat | Nation | Swimmers | Time | Notes |
| 1 | 1 | Uwe Daßler Lars Hinneburg Sven Lodziewski Thomas Flemming | 7:16.61 | Q | |
| 2 | 1 | Craig Oppel Dan Jorgensen Matt Cetlinski Doug Gjertsen | 7:18.76 | Q | |
| 3 | 2 | Peter Sitt Rainer Henkel Stefan Pfeiffer Erik Hochstein | 7:19.38 | Q | |
| 4 | 1 | Jason Plummer Ian Brown Martin Roberts Tom Stachewicz | 7:21.46 | Q | |
| 5 | 1 | Massimo Trevisan Fabrizio Rampazzo Valerio Giambalvo Roberto Gleria | 7:21.85 | Q | |
| 6 | 2 | Stéphan Caron Michel Pou Olivier Fougeroud Laurent Neuville | 7:23.03 | Q | |
| 7 | 2 | Tommy Werner Christer Wallin Henrik Jangvall Michael Söderlund | 7:23.82 | Q | |
| 8 | 2 | Turlough O'Hare Darren Ward Donald Haddow Gary Vandermeulen | 7:26.28 | Q | |
| 9 | 1 | Kevin Boyd Paul Howe Jonathan Broughton Roland Lee | 7:29.77 | ||
| 10 | 2 | Cristiano Michelena Jorge Fernandes Emanuel Nascimento Júlio López | 7:32.11 | ||
| 11 | 1 | Franz Mortensen Claus Christensen Jan Larsen Peter Rohde | 7:33.31 | ||
| 12 | 1 | Kwon Sang-won Yang Wook Song Kwang-sun Kwon Soon-kun | 7:52.93 | ||
| 13 | 1 | Hans Foerster Kraig Singleton Ronald Pickard William Cleveland | 8:15.51 | ||
| 14 | 2 | Ahmad Faraj Mohamed Abdullah Bassam Al-Ansari Mohamed Bin Abid | 9:01.03 | ||
| 2 | Ignacio Escamilla Jorge Alarcón Carlos Romo Rodrigo González | ||||
| 2 | Sergey Kudryayev Aleksandr Bazhanov Nikolay Yevseyev Aleksey Kuznetsov |
Final
| Rank | Lane | Nation | Swimmers | Time | Notes |
| 5 | Troy Dalbey Matt Cetlinski Doug Gjertsen Matt Biondi | 7:12.51 | |||
| 4 | Uwe Daßler Sven Lodziewski Thomas Flemming Steffen Zesner | 7:13.68 | NR | ||
| 3 | Erik Hochstein Thomas Fahrner Rainer Henkel Michael Gross | 7:14.35 | |||
| 4 | 6 | Tom Stachewicz Ian Brown Jason Plummer Duncan Armstrong | 7:15.23 | OC | |
| 5 | 2 | Roberto Gleria Giorgio Lamberti Massimo Trevisan Valerio Giambalvo | 7:16.00 | NR | |
| 6 | 1 | Anders Holmertz Tommy Werner Michael Söderlund Christer Wallin | 7:19.10 | ||
| 7 | 7 | Michel Pou Franck Iacono Olivier Fougeroud Ludovic Depickère | 7:24.69 | ||
| 8 | 8 | Turlough O'Hare Sandy Goss Donald Haddow Gary Vandermeulen | 7:24.91 |