The men's 100 metre breaststroke event at the 2012 Summer Olympics took place on 28–29 July at the London Aquatics Centre in London, United Kingdom.

Cameron van der Burgh smashed a new world record to end South Africa's medal drought for an Olympic gold in the event. He blasted out to a 27.07 split on the first length, and pulled strongly ahead of the field to touch the wall first in 58.46, slashing 0.12 seconds off the record set by Australia's Brenton Rickard in a high-tech bodysuit from the 2009 World Championships. An underwater camera footage also showed him executing three illegal butterfly kicks on the pullout. The champion later admitted that he was doing it, saying that by not doing it "you are falling behind or giving yourself a disadvantage." Rickard's teammate Christian Sprenger ripped off a sterling time of 58.93 to snatch the silver, moving him to sixth all time in the event's history. Meanwhile, U.S. swimmer Brendan Hansen ended his three-year retirement to take the bronze in 59.49.

Hungary's Dániel Gyurta finished off the podium with a fourth-place time and a national record in 59.53. Japan's defending Olympic champion Kosuke Kitajima witnessed his three-peat bid come to an end with a fifth-place time in 59.79. Rickard, the former world record holder, earned a sixth spot in 59.87, while Italy's Fabio Scozzoli (59.97) and Lithuania's Giedrius Titenis (1:00.84) closed out the field.

Earlier in the semifinals, Van der Burgh cleared a 59-second barrier for the second time in his career and the first in textile to pick up a final top seed in 58.83, erasing Kitajima's 2008 Olympic record by eight-hundredths of a second.

Records Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.

The following records were established during the competition:

Date Event Name Nationality Time Record July 28 Semifinal 1 Cameron van der Burgh 58.83 July 29 Final Cameron van der Burgh 58.46

Results

Heats

Rank Heat Lane Name Nationality Time Notes 1 6 3 Christian Sprenger 59.62 Q 2 6 4 Kosuke Kitajima 59.63 Q 3 6 2 Giedrius Titenis 59.68 Q 4 4 6 Dániel Gyurta 59.76 Q, NR 5 5 3 Glenn Snyders 59.78 Q, NR 6 4 4 Cameron van der Burgh 59.79 Q 7 5 2 Scott Dickens 59.85 Q, NR 8 6 5 Ryo Tateishi 59.86 Q 9 5 7 Michael Jamieson 59.89 Q 10 4 5 Brendan Hansen 59.93 Q 11 5 6 Eric Shanteau 59.96 Q 12 5 4 Fabio Scozzoli 59.99 Q 13 4 2 Craig Benson 1:00.04 Q 14 4 3 Brenton Rickard 1:00.07 Q 15 5 5 Felipe França Silva 1:00.38 Q 16 6 6 Felipe Lima 1:00.57 Q 17 3 4 Giacomo Perez d'Ortona 1:00.59 18 5 1 Damir Dugonjič 1:00.77 19 6 1 Christian vom Lehn 1:00.78 20 4 7 Lennart Stekelenburg 1:00.96 21 6 7 Hendrik Feldwehr 1:01.00 22 3 6 Panagiotis Samilidis 1:01.20 23 4 1 Valeriy Dymo 1:01.27 5 8 Mattia Pesce 25 3 1 Carlos Almeida 1:01.40 26 2 3 Laurent Carnol 1:01.46 27 6 8 Roman Sloudnov 1:01.47 28 3 3 Li Xiayan 1:01.55 29 3 8 Martin Liivamägi 1:01.57 4 8 Barry Murphy 31 2 6 Čaba Silađi 1:01.95 32 3 2 Dawid Szulich 1:02.07 3 5 Imri Ganiel 34 2 4 Vladislav Polyakov 1:02.15 35 2 2 Édgar Crespo 1:02.18 36 2 5 Jakob Jóhann Sveinsson 1:02.65 37 2 1 Malick Fall 1:02.93 3 7 Dragos Agache 39 2 8 Azad Al-Barazi 1:03.48 NR 40 2 7 Danila Artiomov 1:03.57 41 1 4 Amini Fonua 1:03.65 42 1 3 Mubarak Al-Besher 1:05.26 43 1 5 Diguan Pigot 1:05.55 44 1 6 Wael Koubrousli 1:07.06

Semifinals

Semifinal 1 Rank Lane Name Nationality Time Notes 1 3 Cameron van der Burgh 58.83 Q, , AF 2 7 Fabio Scozzoli 59.44 Q 3 1 Brenton Rickard 59.50 Q 4 4 Kosuke Kitajima 59.69 Q 5 5 Dániel Gyurta 59.74 Q, NR 6 2 Brendan Hansen 59.78 Q 7 6 Ryo Tateishi 59.93 8 8 Felipe Lima 1:00.08

Semifinal 2 Rank Lane Name Nationality Time Notes 1 4 Christian Sprenger 59.61 Q 2 5 Giedrius Titenis 59.66 Q 3 2 Michael Jamieson 59.89 4 7 Eric Shanteau 59.96 5 8 Felipe França Silva 1:00.01 6 1 Craig Benson 1:00.13 7 3 Glenn Snyders 1:00.15 8 6 Scott Dickens 1:00.16

Final Rank Lane Name Nationality Time Notes 4 Cameron van der Burgh 58.46 6 Christian Sprenger 58.93 8 Brendan Hansen 59.49 4 1 Dániel Gyurta 59.53 NR 5 7 Kosuke Kitajima 59.79 6 3 Brenton Rickard 59.87 7 5 Fabio Scozzoli 59.97 8 2 Giedrius Titenis 1:00.84

References

External links