Swimming at the 2000 Summer Olympics – Men's 200 metre freestyle
The men's 200 metre freestyle event at the 2000 Summer Olympics took place on 17–18 September at the Sydney International Aquatic Centre in Sydney, Australia.
Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband edged out Australia's top favorite Ian Thorpe on the final lap to claim a gold medal in the event. Stunning a massive home crowd, he touched the wall first in 1:45.35 to match his own world record from the semifinals. As a result of starting harder than usual, Thorpe ended up only with a silver in 1:45.83, while Italy's Massimiliano Rosolino added a bronze to his hardware from the 400 m freestyle in a time 1:46.65.
U.S. swimmer Josh Davis missed the podium by six hundredths of a second, finishing with a new American record of 1:46.73. Davis was followed in fifth and sixth by British duo Paul Palmer and James Salter. Canada's Rick Say and another Aussie Grant Hackett closed out the field.
Earlier in the semifinals, Van den Hoogenband blasted a new world record of 1:45.35, slashing 0.16 seconds off the mark set by Thorpe from the Australian trials. One heat later, Thorpe powered home with a second-fastest time of 1:45.37, but missed taking the record back by two hundredths of a second. He also erased Yevgeny Sadovyi's 1992 Olympic record by 0.14 seconds to pick up a top seed from the prelims.
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 |
| 17 September | Heat 7 | Ian Thorpe | 1:46.56 | ||
| 17 September | Semifinal 1 | Pieter van den Hoogenband | 1:45.35 | ||
| 18 September | Final | Pieter van den Hoogenband | 1:45.35 |
Results
Heats
| Rank | Heat | Lane | Name | Nationality | Time | Notes |
| 1 | 7 | 4 | Ian Thorpe | 1:46.56 | Q, | |
| 2 | 6 | 4 | Pieter van den Hoogenband | 1:46.71 | Q | |
| 3 | 7 | 5 | Massimiliano Rosolino | 1:47.37 | Q | |
| 4 | 5 | 4 | Josh Davis | 1:48.43 | Q | |
| 5 | 7 | 6 | Rick Say | 1:48.62 | Q | |
| 6 | 5 | 3 | James Salter | 1:48.77 | Q | |
| 7 | 6 | 2 | Igor Koleda | 1:49.01 | Q, NR | |
| 8 | 7 | 3 | Scott Goldblatt | 1:49.05 | Q | |
| 9 | 6 | 5 | Grant Hackett | 1:49.23 | Q | |
| 10 | 5 | 8 | Örn Arnarson | 1:49.78 | Q, NR | |
| 11 | 5 | 5 | Paul Palmer | 1:49.83 | Q | |
| 12 | 5 | 7 | Stefan Herbst | 1:49.84 | Q | |
| 13 | 7 | 2 | Andrey Kapralov | 1:49.92 | Q | |
| 14 | 6 | 7 | Stefan Pohl | 1:50.07 | Q | |
| 15 | 6 | 6 | Béla Szabados | 1:50.10 | Q | |
| 16 | 5 | 1 | Attila Zubor | 1:50.11 | Q | |
| 17 | 7 | 8 | Dragoş Coman | 1:50.20 | ||
| 18 | 7 | 1 | Květoslav Svoboda | 1:50.29 | ||
| 19 | 6 | 8 | Martijn Zuijdweg | 1:50.37 | ||
| 20 | 5 | 6 | Jacob Carstensen | 1:50.41 | ||
| 21 | 5 | 2 | Mark Johnston | 1:50.92 | ||
| 22 | 4 | 5 | Arūnas Savickas | 1:52.02 | ||
| 23 | 2 | 5 | Mark Chay | 1:52.22 | NR | |
| 24 | 4 | 7 | Rostyslav Svanidze | 1:52.35 | ||
| 25 | 4 | 6 | Ricardo Pedroso | 1:52.60 | ||
| 26 | 4 | 1 | Mark Kwok Kin Ming | 1:52.71 | ||
| 27 | 3 | 5 | Damian Alleyne | 1:52.75 | ||
| 28 | 4 | 4 | Dmitri Kuzmin | 1:52.93 | ||
| 29 | 3 | 2 | Woo Chul | 1:53.02 | ||
| 30 | 3 | 3 | Javier Díaz | 1:53.20 | ||
| 31 | 4 | 3 | Andrei Cecan | 1:53.23 | ||
| 32 | 3 | 1 | Jonathan Duncan | 1:53.27 | ||
| 33 | 4 | 2 | Rodrigo Castro | 1:53.65 | ||
| 34 | 3 | 4 | Fernando Jácome | 1:54.17 | ||
| 35 | 3 | 7 | Francisco Paez | 1:54.32 | ||
| 36 | 6 | 3 | Dimitrios Manganas | 1:54.36 | ||
| 37 | 2 | 2 | Allen Ong | 1:54.53 | ||
| 38 | 3 | 8 | Wu Nien-pin | 1:54.58 | ||
| 39 | 2 | 7 | George Gleason | 1:54.64 | ||
| 40 | 4 | 8 | Glen Walshaw | 1:54.70 | NR | |
| 41 | 2 | 3 | Nikola Kalabić | 1:54.75 | ||
| 42 | 2 | 8 | Aytekin Mindan | 1:54.86 | ||
| 43 | 3 | 6 | Vicha Ratanachote | 1:54.91 | ||
| 44 | 1 | 3 | Oleg Tsvetkovskiy | 1:54.93 | ||
| 45 | 2 | 1 | Carl Probert | 1:54.98 | ||
| 46 | 1 | 5 | Mahmoud El-Wany | 1:55.19 | ||
| 47 | 1 | 4 | Sebastien Paddington | 1:55.40 | ||
| 48 | 2 | 4 | Andrey Kvassov | 1:55.72 | ||
| 49 | 2 | 6 | Alexandros Aresti | 1:57.54 | ||
| 50 | 1 | 6 | Hakimuddin Shabbir Habibulla | 1:58.35 | ||
| 51 | 1 | 2 | Santiago Deu | 1:59.31 | ||
| 6 | 3 | Ryk Neethling | ||||
| 7 | 7 | Dmitry Chernyshov |