Swimming at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Men's 200 metre butterfly

The men's 200 metre butterfly event at the 2012 Summer Olympics took place on 30–31 July at the London Aquatics Centre in London, United Kingdom.^[1]

Men's 200 metre butterfly at the Games of the XXX Olympiad
Venue	London Aquatics Centre
Date	July 30, 2012 (heats & semifinals) July 31, 2012 (final)
Competitors	37 from 28 nations
Winning time	1:52.96 AF
Medalists
Chad le Clos  South Africa Michael Phelps  United States Takeshi Matsuda  Japan
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For the second time at the 2012 Olympic Games, Michael Phelps fell short in his attempt to win the same event three consecutive times, due to a spectacular performance from South Africa's Chad le Clos. Phelps was considered a favorite to win the race, but Le Clos came from third at the final turn to edge out the superstar (and his personal hero) by five-hundredths of a second (0.05) for the gold medal and an African record in 1:52.96.^[2][3] By finishing with a time of 1:53.01, Phelps earned his second silver medal of the games, bringing his overall total to eighteen, and matching Larisa Latynina's record of eighteen medals as the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time.^[4][5][6] Japan's Takeshi Matsuda managed to repeat his bronze from Beijing four years earlier in 1:53.21.^[7][8]

Austria's Dinko Jukić, who claimed the top seed earlier in the prelims, missed the podium by over a body length with a fourth-place time and a national record in 1:54.35.^[8][9] U.S. swimmer Tyler Clary finished fifth in 1:55.06 to hold off a close battle from Serbia's Velimir Stjepanović (1:55.07) and Poland's three-time Olympic finalist Paweł Korzeniowski (1:55.08) by a hundredth of a second (0.01) each.^[10][11] China's Chen Yin rounded out the historic finale with an eighth-place time in 1:55.18.^[8]

Hungary's László Cseh missed a chance to reach the final roster and defend his Olympic silver medal after placing twelfth in the semifinals (1:55.88).^[9]

Records

Prior to this competition, the world and Olympic records were:

World record	Michael Phelps (USA)	1:51.51	Rome, Italy	29 July 2009	[12][13]
Olympic record	Michael Phelps (USA)	1:52.03	Beijing, China	13 August 2008	[14]

Results

Heats

^[15]

Rank	Heat	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	5	3	Dinko Jukić	Austria	1:54.79	Q
2	5	6	Tyler Clary	United States	1:54.96	Q
3	3	7	Velimir Stjepanović	Serbia	1:54:99	Q, NR
4	3	3	Chad le Clos	South Africa	1:55.23	Q
5	5	4	Michael Phelps	United States	1:55.53	Q
6	3	5	Chen Yin	China	1:55.60	Q
7	3	6	Kazuya Kaneda	Japan	1:55.70	Q
8	4	4	Takeshi Matsuda	Japan	1:55.81	Q
9	4	3	László Cseh	Hungary	1:55.86	Q
10	3	4	Wu Peng	China	1:55.88	Q
11	5	2	Paweł Korzeniowski	Poland	1:56.09	Q
12	5	5	Nick D'Arcy	Australia	1:56.25	Q
13	4	5	Bence Biczó	Hungary	1:56.51	Q
14	5	1	Chris Wright	Australia	1:56.69	Q
15	4	1	Nikolay Skvortsov	Russia	1:56.76	Q
16	3	1	Ioannis Drymonakos	Greece	1:56.97	Q
17	4	6	Kaio de Almeida	Brazil	1:56.99
	3	2	Joe Roebuck	Great Britain
19	4	7	Marcin Cieślak	Poland	1:57.07
20	5	7	Roberto Pavoni	Great Britain	1:57.55
21	4	2	Leonardo de Deus	Brazil	1:58.03
22	2	3	Pedro Oliveira	Portugal	1:58.45
23	4	8	Stefanos Dimitriadis	Greece	1:58.79
24	3	8	Robert Žbogar	Slovenia	1:58.99
25	2	8	Mauricio Fiol	Peru	1:59.02	NR
26	5	8	Joseph Schooling	Singapore	1:59.18
27	2	1	Marcos Lavado	Venezuela	1:59.31
28	2	2	Illya Chuyev	Ukraine	1:59.65
29	2	5	Alexandru Coci	Romania	1:59.67
30	2	7	Hsu Chi-Chieh	Chinese Taipei	1:59.81
31	2	6	David Sharpe	Canada	1:59.87
32	1	4	Gal Nevo	Israel	1:59.98
33	2	4	Alexandre Liess	Switzerland	2:00.13
34	1	3	Omar Pinzón	Colombia	2:02.32
35	1	6	Diego Castillo	Panama	2:04.72
36	1	5	Yousef Al-Askari	Kuwait	2:05.41
37	1	2	Hocine Haciane	Andorra	2:06.37

Semifinals

Semifinal 1

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	6	Takeshi Matsuda	Japan	1:54.25	Q
2	5	Chad le Clos	South Africa	1:54.43	Q, AF
2	3	Chen Yin	China	1:54.43	Q
4	4	Tyler Clary	United States	1:54.93	Q
5	2	Wu Peng	China	1:55.65
6	7	Nick D'Arcy	Australia	1:56.07
7	8	Ioannis Drymonakos	Greece	1:58.05
8	1	Chris Wright	Australia	1:58.56

Semifinal 2

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	3	Michael Phelps	United States	1:54.53	Q
2	4	Dinko Jukić	Austria	1:54.95	Q
3	7	Paweł Korzeniowski	Poland	1:55.04	Q
4	5	Velimir Stjepanović	Serbia	1:55.13	Q
5	1	Bence Biczó	Hungary	1:55.36
6	6	Kazuya Kaneda	Japan	1:55.56
7	2	László Cseh	Hungary	1:55.88
8	8	Nikolay Skvorstov	Russia	1:56.53

Final

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
	5	Chad le Clos	South Africa	1:52.96	AF
	6	Michael Phelps	United States	1:53.01
	4	Takeshi Matsuda	Japan	1:53.21
4	7	Dinko Jukic	Austria	1:54.35	NR
5	2	Tyler Clary	United States	1:55.06
6	8	Velimir Stjepanović	Serbia	1:55.07
7	1	Paweł Korzeniowski	Poland	1:55.08
8	3	Chen Yin	China	1:55.18