The men's 1500 metre freestyle event at the 1964 Olympic Games took place between 16 and 17 October. 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
Five heats were held; the eight fastest swimmers advanced to the Finals. Those that advanced are highlighted.
Heat One Rank Athlete Country Time 1 Bob Windle Australia 17:15.9 2 József Katona Hungary 17:33.5 3 Kazuyuki Iwamoto Japan 17:52.7 4 Holger Kirschke Germany 18:01.6 5 Celestino Pérez Puerto Rico 18:07.2 6 Tan Thuan Heng Malaysia 18:24.2 7 Esa Lepola Finland 18:33.4
Heat Two Rank Athlete Country Time 1 Roy Saari United States 17:27.0 2 Sueaki Sasaki Japan 17:28.8 3 Sandy Gilchrist Canada 17:42.0 4 Tin Maung Ni Myanmar 18:09.5 5 Alan Durrett Northern Rhodesia 18:24.9 6 Slobodan Dijaković Yugoslavia 18:31.2 7 Walter Ledgard Jr. Peru 19:10.3
Heat Three Rank Athlete Country Time 1 John Nelson United States 17:22.4 2 Russell Phegan Australia 17:28.9 3 Guillermo Echevarría Mexico 17:35.0 4 Miguel Torres Spain 17:36.0 5 Heinz Junga Germany 18:08.7 6 Petr Lohnický Czechoslovakia 18:18.4 7 Eliot Chenaux Puerto Rico 18:33.1
Heat Four Rank Athlete Country Time 1 Allan Wood Australia 17:26.3 2 Veljko Rogošić Yugoslavia 18:05.5 3 John Thurley Great Britain 18:12.3 4 Ricardo Morello Argentina 18:46.5 5 Pano Capéronis Switzerland 19:10.5 6 Robert Loh Hong Kong 19:28.6
Heat Five Rank Athlete Country Time 1 Bill Farley United States 17:30.5 2 Satoru Nakano Japan 17:40.4 3 Julio Arango Colombia 17:59.1 4 Alfredo Guzmán Mexico 18:07.4
Final
Rank Athlete Country Time Notes Bob Windle 17:01.7 OR John Nelson 17:03.0 Allan Wood 17:07.7 4 Bill Farley 17:18.2 5 Russell Phegan 17:22.4 6 Sueaki Sasaki 17:25.3 7 Roy Saari 17:29.2 8 József Katona 17:30.8
Key: OR = Olympic record
References