The women's 800 metre freestyle event at the 1968 Olympic Games took place between 22 and 24 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 sixteen lengths of the pool.
The winning margin was 11.7 seconds which as of 2023 remains the greatest winning margin in this event at the Olympics and one of only two occasions when the event was won by more than 7 seconds, the other time being in 2016.
Results
Heats Heat 1 Rank Athlete Country Time Note 1 Debbie Meyer 9:42.8 2 Angela Coughlan 10:00.2 3 Sigrid Goral 10:09.3 4 Kristina Moir 10:24.5 5 Helen Elliott 10:32.9
Heat 2 Rank Athlete Country Time Note 1 Karen Moras 9:38.3 2 Denise Langford 9:59.3 3 Laura Vaca 10:01.8 4 Tui Shipston 10:28.0 5 Norma Amezcua 10:31.6 6 Emilia Figueroa 10:57.7
Heat 3 Rank Athlete Country Time Note 1 Pam Kruse 9:49.8 2 Elisabeth Ljunggren-Morris 10:07.5 3 Susan Williams 10:17.6 4 Sabine Rantzsch 10:18.4 5 Lylian Castillo 11:19.1
Heat 4 Rank Athlete Country Time Note 1 Christine Deakes 10:06.7 2 Marie-José Kersaudy 10:19.8 3 Novella Calligaris 10:21.0 4 Patricia Olano 10:44.1 5 Silvana Asturias 11:12.5
Heat 5 Rank Athlete Country Time Note 1 María Teresa Ramírez 9:46.4 2 Patty Caretto 9:46.4 3 Dominique Mollier 10:21.4 4 Marjatta Hara 10:23.3 5 Olga de Angulo 10:40.5
Final
Rank Athlete Country Time Notes Debbie Meyer 9:24.0 OR Pam Kruse 9:35.7 Maria Teresa Ramírez 9:38.5 4 Karen Moras 9:38.6 5 Patty Caretto 9:51.3 6 Angela Coughlan 9:56.4 7 Denise Langford 9:56.7 8 Laura Vaca 10:02.5
Key: OR = Olympic record
References