Swimming at the 2000 Summer Olympics – Men's 1500 metre freestyle


The men's 1500 metre freestyle event at the 2000 Summer Olympics took place on 22–23 September at the Sydney International Aquatic Centre in Sydney, Australia.
Australia's Grant Hackett denied his teammate and overwhelming favorite Kieren Perkins a third straight title in the event. Having suffered badly over the first six days of the Games, Hackett maintained a strong lead from start to finish, and touched the wall first to claim a gold in 14:48.33. Perkins fought off a challenge against his newest rival in the middle of the program's longest race, but ended up only with a silver in 14:53.59, handing the entire medal haul for the host nation with a 1–2 finish. U.S. swimmer Chris Thompson came up with a spectacular swim to take the bronze in an American record of 14:56.81, holding off a fast-closing Alexei Filipets of Russia by seven hundredths of a second. For the first time in Olympic history, all three medalists finished the race under a 15-minute barrier.
South Africa's dark horse Ryk Neethling powered home with a fifth-place effort in a new national record of 15:00.48, while American Erik Vendt, who previously set a continental mark from the trials, faded shortly to sixth in a time of 15:08.61. Ukraine's Igor Chervynskiy and Germany's Heiko Hell rounded out the finale.

Records

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

Results

Heats

RankHeatLaneNameNationalityTimeNotes
144Kieren Perkins14:58.34Q
254Erik Vendt15:05.11Q
364Grant Hackett15:07.50Q
465Ryk Neethling15:09.12Q, AF
543Alexei Filipets15:10.94Q
655Chris Thompson15:11.21Q
756Heiko Hell15:11.91Q
845Igor Chervynskiy15:12.30Q
966Dragoș Coman15:12.64NR
1062Christian Minotti15:12.72
1161Nicolas Rostoucher15:13.26
1242Frederik Hviid15:14.37
1352Masato Hirano15:14.43AS
1453Igor Snitko15:14.67
1535Ricardo Monasterio15:17.00
1668Yota Arase15:18.20
1767Paul Palmer15:21.09
1841Luiz Lima15:23.15
1963Emiliano Brembilla15:27.65
2034Dmitry Koptur15:29.62
2133Spyridon Gianniotis15:29.69
2247Alexey Kovrigin15:30.69
2346Andrew Hurd15:30.98
2458Teo Edo15:32.01
2551Hannes Kalteis15:32.90
2614Vlastimil Burda15:33.25NR
2748Tim Peterson15:34.94
2838Torwai Sethsothorn15:39.60
2957Adam Faulkner15:39.86
3031Petar Stoychev15:42.76
3132Jorge Carral Armella15:43.03
3237Jin Hao15:48.49
3336Cho Sung-mo15:50.45
3423Juan Carlos Piccio15:51.57NR
3526Agustín Fiorilli15:52.69
3625Dieung Manggang16:02.11
3724Jonathan Duncan16:03.41
3827Steven Chandra16:10.98
3922Diego Mularoni16:12.91
4015Li Yun-lun16:13.05
13Ivan Ivanov

Final