Swimming at the 1980 Summer Olympics – Women's 800 metre freestyle

The women's 800 metre freestyle event at the 1980 Summer Olympics was held on 26 July at the Swimming Pool at the Olimpiysky Sports Complex.^[1]

Women's 800 metre freestyle at the Games of the XXII Olympiad
Venue	Swimming Pool at the Olimpiysky Sports Complex
Date	26 July
Competitors	14 from 9 nations
Winning time	8:28.90 OR
Medalists
Michelle Ford  Australia Ines Diers  East Germany Heike Dähne  East Germany
← 1976 1984 →

Records

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

World record	Tracey Wickham (AUS)	8:24.62	Edmonton, Canada	5 August 1978
Olympic record	Petra Thümer (GDR)	8:37.14	Montreal, Canada	25 July 1976

The following records were established during the competition:

Date	Event	Name	Nationality	Time	Record
26 July	Heat 1	Heike Dähne	East Germany	8:36.09	OR
26 July	Final	Michelle Ford	Australia	8:28.90	OR

Results

Heats

Rank	Heat	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	1	Heike Dähne	East Germany	8:36.09	Q, OR
2	2	Ines Diers	East Germany	8:40.29	Q
3	2	Michelle Ford	Australia	8:42.36	Q
4	1	Irina Aksyonova	Soviet Union	8:44.42	Q
5	1	Pascale Verbauwen	Belgium	8:45.12	Q
6	1	Oksana Komissarova	Soviet Union	8:45.80	Q
7	2	Ines Geißler	East Germany	8:46.96	Q
8	1	Yelena Ivanova	Soviet Union	8:47.33	Q
9	2	Rosemary Brown	Australia	8:49.47
10	2	Jacquelene Willmott	Great Britain	8:50.51
11	2	Reggie de Jong	Netherlands	8:54.49
12	1	Roberta Felotti	Italy	8:58.54
13	2	Sofia Dara	Greece	9:02.37
14	2	Nikole Schrepfer	Switzerland	9:15.11
	1	Klára Gulyás	Hungary	DNS
	1	María Pia Ayora	Peru

Final

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
	Michelle Ford	Australia	8:28.90	OR
	Ines Diers	East Germany	8:32.55
	Heike Dähne	East Germany	8:33.48
4	Irina Aksyonova	Soviet Union	8:38.05
5	Oksana Komissarova	Soviet Union	8:42:04
6	Pascale Verbauwen	Belgium	8:44.84
7	Ines Geißler	East Germany	8:45.28
8	Yelena Ivanova	Soviet Union	8:46.45