The men's 1500 metre freestyle event at the 1968 Olympic Games took place between 25 and 26 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 Heat 1 Rank Athlete Country Time Note 1 Mike Burton 17:27.2 2 Ralph Hutton 17:35.9 3 Hans Faßnacht 17:40.2 4 Julio Arango 17:53.9 5 Vladimir Bure 18:14.7
Heat 2 Rank Athlete Country Time Note 1 John Nelson 17:36.0 2 Juan Alanís 17:37.4 3 Karl-Rüdiger Mann 17:37.6 4 Antonio Corell 18:12.7
Heat 3 Rank Athlete Country Time Note 1 Greg Brough 17:17.1 2 John Kinsella 17:22.7 3 Gunnar Larsson 17:57.0 4 Jorge Urreta 17:57.5 5 Władysław Wojtakajtis 18:32.4 6 Jacques Henrard 18:38.2
Heat 4 Rank Athlete Country Time Note 1 Graham White 17:10.1 2 Guillermo Echevarría 17:11.0 3 Katsuji Ito 17:50.2 4 Jean-François Ravelinghien 18:11.9 5 Jorge González 19:06.0 6 Rubén Guerrero 19:36.4
Final
Rank Athlete Country Time Notes Mike Burton 16:38.9 OR John Kinsella 16:57.3 Greg Brough 17:04.7 4 Graham White 17:08.0 5 Ralph Hutton 17:15.6 6 Guillermo Echevarría 17:36.4 7 Juan Alanís 17:46.6 8 John Nelson 18:05.1
Key: OR = Olympic record
References