PROFILPELAJAR.COM

Men's 200 metre breaststroke
at the Games of the XXXI Olympiad
Men's 200 metre breaststroke; at the Games of the XXXI Olympiad
Venue	Olympic Aquatics Stadium
Dates	9 August 2016 (heats &; semifinals); 10 August 2016 (final)
Competitors	39 from 30 nations
Winning time	2:07.46 NR
Medalists
	← 2012 2020 →

The men's 200 metre breaststroke event at the 2016 Summer Olympics took place between 9–10 August at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium.^[1]

The winning margin was 0.07 seconds which as of 2023 remains the only time this event for men was won by less than a tenth of a second at the Olympics.

Summary

Double Asian Games champion Dmitriy Balandin surprised the field from the outside to become Kazakhstan's first ever gold medalist in swimming.^[2]^[3] Coming from behind in lane eight, he produced a late surge about the midway of the final leg to upset the pool for an unexpected Olympic triumph with a 2:07.46.^[4]^[5] U.S. breaststroker Josh Prenot nearly charged to the front at the final stretch, before fading to a runner-up finish in 2:07.53, seven-hundredths of a second behind the Kazakh.^[6] Meanwhile, Russia's Anton Chupkov claimed the final podium spot, putting up a time of 2:07.70.^[7]

Great Britain's Andrew Willis improved upon his eighth-place feat from London 2012 to finish fourth with a 2:07.78, narrowly missing on a podium by eight-hundredths of a second.^[8] Japan's Yasuhiro Koseki seized a comfortable lead throughout the majority of the race but slipped down the order on the home stretch to finish fifth in 2:07.80.^[9] Koseki's teammate Ippei Watanabe posted a sixth-place time in 2:07.87, while defending World Champion Marco Koch of Germany (2:08.00) and Prenot's fellow countryman Kevin Cordes (2:08.34) rounded out the top eight.^[7]

Earlier in the semifinals, Watanabe threw down a top-seeded time of 2:07.22 to slice 0.06 seconds off the existing Olympic record set by Hungary's defending champion Dániel Gyurta, who had narrowly missed the top sixteen field in the heats.^[10]^[11]

Records

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

World record	Akihiro Yamaguchi (JPN)	2:07.01	Gifu, Japan	15 September 2012	^[12]^[13]
Olympic record	Dániel Gyurta (HUN)	2:07.28	London, United Kingdom	1 August 2012	^[14]

The following records were established during the competition:

Date	Event	Name	Nationality	Time	Record
9 August	Semifinal 1	Ippei Watanabe	Japan	2:07.22	OR

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.^[1]

Results

Heats

Rank	Heat	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	5	3	Anton Chupkov	Russia	2:07.93	Q, NR
2	3	4	Yasuhiro Koseki	Japan	2:08.61	Q
3	4	5	Andrew Willis	Great Britain	2:08.92	Q
4	3	3	Ilya Khomenko	Russia	2:08.94	Q
5	4	4	Marco Koch	Germany	2:08.98	Q
6	4	6	Dmitriy Balandin	Kazakhstan	2:09.00	Q
7	5	5	Kevin Cordes	United States	2:09.30	Q
8	4	3	Ippei Watanabe	Japan	2:09.63	Q
9	3	6	Mao Feilian	China	2:09.80	Q
10	5	4	Josh Prenot	United States	2:09.91	Q
11	4	2	Matti Mattsson	Finland	2:10.09	Q
12	3	7	Erik Persson	Sweden	2:10.17	Q
13	3	1	Li Xiang	China	2:10.17	Q
14	4	1	Carlos Claverie	Venezuela	2:10.35	Q
15	5	6	Craig Benson	Great Britain	2:11.19	Q
16	5	1	Luca Pizzini	Italy	2:11.26	Q
17	3	5	Dániel Gyurta	Hungary	2:11.28
18	5	7	Anton Sveinn McKee	Iceland	2:11.39
19	2	3	Nicholas Quinn	Ireland	2:11.67
20	2	8	Yannick Käser	Switzerland	2:11.77
21	2	7	Laurent Carnol	Luxembourg	2:11.94
22	4	7	Giedrius Titenis	Lithuania	2:12.13
23	1	5	Glenn Snyders	New Zealand	2:12.47
24	5	8	Ashton Baumann	Canada	2:12.61
25	4	8	Jarred Crous	South Africa	2:12.64
26	3	2	Cameron van der Burgh	South Africa	2:12.67
27	3	8	Panagiotis Samilidis	Greece	2:12.68
28	2	1	Jorge Murillo	Colombia	2:12.81
29	2	4	Tales Cerdeira	Brazil	2:12.83
30	1	4	Dávid Horváth	Hungary	2:13.24
31	2	2	Choi Kyu-woong	South Korea	2:13.36
32	1	3	Basten Caerts	Belgium	2:13.44
33	1	6	Martin Allikvee	Estonia	2:13.66
34	1	2	Lee Hsuan-yen	Chinese Taipei	2:14.84
35	2	5	Dimitrios Koulouris	Greece	2:14.86
36	5	2	Thiago Simon	Brazil	2:15.01
37	2	6	Dmytro Oseledets	Ukraine	2:15.19
38	1	1	Denis Petrashov	Kyrgyzstan	2:16.57
39	1	7	Arya Nasimi Shad	Iran	2:20.18

Semifinals

Semifinal 1

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	6	Ippei Watanabe	Japan	2:07.22	Q, OR
2	2	Josh Prenot	United States	2:07.78	Q
3	4	Yasuhiro Koseki	Japan	2:07.91	Q
4	3	Dmitriy Balandin	Kazakhstan	2:08.20	Q
5	5	Ilya Khomenko	Russia	2:09.73
6	7	Erik Persson	Sweden	2:10.12
7	8	Luca Pizzini	Italy	2:11.53
8	1	Carlos Claverie	Venezuela	2:11.56

Semifinal 2

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	5	Andrew Willis	Great Britain	2:07.73	Q
2	6	Kevin Cordes	United States	2:07.99	Q
3	4	Anton Chupkov	Russia	2:08.08	Q
4	3	Marco Koch	Germany	2:08.12	Q
5	2	Mao Feilian	China	2:09.64
6	1	Li Xiang	China	2:10.92
7	8	Craig Benson	Great Britain	2:10.93
8	7	Matti Mattsson	Finland	2:12.99

Final

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
	8	Dmitriy Balandin	Kazakhstan	2:07.46	NR
	3	Josh Prenot	United States	2:07.53
	7	Anton Chupkov	Russia	2:07.70	NR
4	5	Andrew Willis	Great Britain	2:07.78
5	6	Yasuhiro Koseki	Japan	2:07.80
6	4	Ippei Watanabe	Japan	2:07.87
7	1	Marco Koch	Germany	2:08.00
8	2	Kevin Cordes	United States	2:08.34