Swimming at the 1956 Summer Olympics – Men's 100 metre backstroke

The men's 100 metre backstroke event at the 1956 Olympic Games took place between 4 and 6 December. This swimming event used backstroke. Because an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of two lengths of the pool.

Results

Heats

Four heats were held; the swimmers with the sixteen fastest times advanced to the Semifinals. The athletes that advanced are highlighted.

Heat One Rank Athlete Country Time 1 Robert Christophe France 1:04.2 2 John Hayres Australia 1:04.4 3 László Magyar Hungary 1:06.1 4 Albert Wiggins United States 1:06.2 5 Haydn Rigby Great Britain 1:06.9 6 Ahmed Nazir Pakistan 1:10.7

Heat Two Rank Athlete Country Time 1 Graham Sykes Great Britain 1:06.2 2 Kazuo Tomita Japan 1:06.4 3 Gilbert Bozon France 1:06.4 4 Ekkehard Miersch Germany 1:07.5 5 Lincoln Hurring New Zealand 1:07.5 6 Pedro Cayco Philippines 1:11.6

Heat Three Rank Athlete Country Time 1 David Theile Australia 1:04.3 2 Yoshi Oyakawa United States 1:05.2 3 Keiji Hase Japan 1:06.3 4 John Brockway Great Britain 1:07.7 5 João Gonçalves Filho Brazil 1:07.9 6 Cheung Kin Man Hong Kong 1:14.0

Heat Four Rank Athlete Country Time 1 John Monckton Australia 1:03.4 2 Frank McKinney United States 1:06.0 3 Dieter Pfeifer Germany 1:06.7 4 Ladislav Bak Czechoslovakia 1:06.9 5 Gérard Coignot France 1:07.5 6 Hideo Ninomiya Japan 1:09.2 7 Lim Heng Chek Malaya 1:12.4

Semifinals

Two heats were held; the swimmers with the eight fastest times advanced to the Finals. The swimmers that advanced are highlighted.

Semifinal One Rank Athlete Country Time 1 John Monckton Australia 1:04.1 2 David Theile Australia 1:04.8 3 Yoshi Oyakawa United States 1:05.0 4 Graham Sykes Great Britain 1:06.5 5 Kazuo Tomita Japan 1:06.5 6 Dieter Pfeifer Germany 1:07.6 7 László Magyar Hungary 1:07.6 8 Ladislav Bak Czechoslovakia 1:07.9

Semifinal Two Rank Athlete Country Time 1 Robert Christophe France 1:04.6 2 John Hayres Australia 1:05.0 3 Frank McKinney United States 1:05.3 4 Albert Wiggins United States 1:06.4 5 Gilbert Bozon France 1:06.5 6 Keiji Hase Japan 1:06.5 7 Ekkehard Miersch Germany 1:06.6 8 Haydn Rigby Great Britain 1:07.6

Final

Rank Athlete Country Time Notes David Theile 1:02.2 WR John Monckton 1:03.2 Frank McKinney 1:04.5 4 Robert Christophe 1:04.9 5 John Hayres 1:05.0 6 Graham Sykes 1:05.6 7 Albert Wiggins 1:05.8 8 Yoshi Oyakawa 1:06.9

Key: WR = World record

References