The men's 1500 metre freestyle event at the 1956 Olympic Games took place between 5 and 7 December. This swimming event used freestyle swimming, which means that the method of the stroke is not regulated (unlike backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly events). Nearly all swimmers use the front crawl or a variant of that stroke. Because an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of 30 lengths of the pool.
Results
Heats
Four heats were held; the swimmers with the fastest eight times advanced to the Finals. The swimmers that advanced are highlighted.
Heat One Rank Athlete Country Time 1 Murray Rose Australia 18:04.1 2 Tsuyoshi Yamanaka Japan 18:04.3 3 William Slater Canada 18:51.6 4 Guy Montserrat France 19:17.4 5 György Csordás Hungary 19:44.2
Heat Two Rank Athlete Country Time 1 Gary Winram Australia 18:35.7 2 Yukiyoshi Aoki Japan 18:36.0 3 George Onekea United States 19:13.8 4 Peter Duncan South Africa 19:58.5 5 Raúl Martín Cuba 19:59.9
Heat Three Rank Athlete Country Time 1 George Breen United States 17:52.9 2 Sándor Záborszky Hungary 19:01.2 3 Jacques Collignon France 19:10.8 4 Bana Sailani Philippines 19:16.8 5 Gennady Androsov Soviet Union 19:22.6 6 Hans-Joachim Reich Germany 19:28.6
Heat Four Rank Athlete Country Time 1 Murray Garretty Australia 18:27.4 2 Jean Boiteux France 18:46.6 3 Seizaburo Yagi Japan 18:57.3 4 David Radcliffe United States 19:09.6
Final
Rank Athlete Country Time Notes Murray Rose 17:58.9 Tsuyoshi Yamanaka 18:00.3 George Breen 18:08.2 4 Murray Garretty 18:26.5 5 William Slater 18:38.1 6 Jean Boiteux 18:38.3 7 Yukiyoshi Aoki 18:38.3 8 Gary Winram 19:06.2
References