Swimming at the 1988 Summer Olympics – Men's 400 metre individual medley

The men's 400 metre individual medley event at the 1988 Summer Olympics took place between 20–21 September at the Jamsil Indoor Swimming Pool in Seoul, South Korea.^[1]

Men's 400 metre individual medley at the Games of the XXIV Olympiad
Venue	Jamsil Indoor Swimming Pool
Date	20 September 1988 (heats) 21 September 1988 (finals)
Competitors	35 from 25 nations
Winning time	4:14.75 WR
Medalists
Tamás Darnyi  Hungary David Wharton  United States Stefano Battistelli  Italy
← 1984 1992 →

Records

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

World record	Tamás Darnyi (HUN)	4:15.42	Strasbourg, France	19 August 1987
Olympic record	Alex Baumann (CAN)	4:17.41	Los Angeles, United States	30 July 1984

The following records were established during the competition:

Date	Round	Name	Nation	Time	Record
20 September	Heat 5	Tamás Darnyi	Hungary	4:16.55	OR
21 September	Final A	Tamás Darnyi	Hungary	4:14.75	WR

Results

Heats

Rule: The eight fastest swimmers advance to final A (Q), while the next eight to final B (q).^[2]

Rank	Heat	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	5	Tamás Darnyi	Hungary	4:16.55	Q, OR
2	3	Patrick Kühl	East Germany	4:18.60	Q
3	5	Stefano Battistelli	Italy	4:20.43	Q
4	4	David Wharton	United States	4:20.84	Q
5	4	József Szabó	Hungary	4:20.85	Q
6	4	Jens-Peter Berndt	West Germany	4:20.93	Q
7	5	Peter Bermel	West Germany	4:22.78	Q
8	5	Luca Sacchi	Italy	4:23.37	Q
9	3	Christophe Bordeau	France	4:23.46	q
10	3	Jeff Kostoff	United States	4:24.10	q
11	5	Jon Kelly	Canada	4:24.62	q
12	3	Robert Bruce	Australia	4:25.15	q
13	3	Mikhail Zubkov	Soviet Union	4:25.30	q
14	5	Rob Woodhouse	Australia	4:25.60	q
15	5	Charalambos Papanikolaou	Greece	4:26.72	q
16	4	Paul Brew	Great Britain	4:27.22	q
17	4	Yoshiyuki Mizumoto	Japan	4:28.11
18	3	Laurent Journet	France	4:29.03
19	2	Ondřej Bureš	Czechoslovakia	4:29.62
20	3	Salvador Vassallo	Puerto Rico	4:30.37
21	2	Javier Careaga	Mexico	4:30.71
22	2	Rui Borges	Portugal	4:30.79
23	5	Michael Meldrum	Canada	4:31.74
24	2	Renato Ramalho	Brazil	4:31.95
25	3	Takahiro Fujimoto	Japan	4:33.03
26	2	Diogo Madeira	Portugal	4:35.00
27	4	Martín López-Zubero	Spain	4:35.68
28	2	Lee Jae-soo	South Korea	4:40.46
29	1	Jonathan Sakovich	Guam	4:44.78
30	2	René Concepcion	Philippines	4:48.00
31	1	Sultan Al-Otaibi	Kuwait	4:50.16
32	1	Julian Bolling	Sri Lanka	4:53.61
	2	Desmond Koh	Singapore	DSQ
	4	John Davey	Great Britain	DSQ
	4	Jan Bidrman	Sweden	DNS

Finals

^[3]

Final B

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
9	5	Jeff Kostoff	United States	4:22.95
10	4	Christophe Bordeau	France	4:23.39
11	6	Robert Bruce	Australia	4:24.33
12	3	Jon Kelly	Canada	4:25.02
13	2	Mikhail Zubkov	Soviet Union	4:25.44
14	7	Rob Woodhouse	Australia	4:26.14
15	8	Paul Brew	Great Britain	4:26.77
16	1	Charalambos Papanikolaou	Greece	4:27.95

Final A

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
	4	Tamás Darnyi	Hungary	4:14.75	WR
	6	David Wharton	United States	4:17.36
	3	Stefano Battistelli	Italy	4:18.01
4	2	József Szabó	Hungary	4:18.15
5	5	Patrick Kühl	East Germany	4:18.44
6	7	Jens-Peter Berndt	West Germany	4:21.71
7	8	Luca Sacchi	Italy	4:23.23
8	1	Peter Bermel	West Germany	4:24.02