The Women's 400 metre individual medley competition of the 2021 FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m) was held on 16 December 2021.

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

Results Heats The heats were started at 11:10.Heats results

Rank Heat Lane Name Nationality Time Notes 1 4 3 Ilaria Cusinato 4:30.27 Q 2 4 5 Tessa Cieplucha 4:30.62 Q 3 4 4 Melanie Margalis 4:30.75 Q 4 3 9 Ellen Walshe 4:30.78 Q 5 3 4 Bailey Andison 4:31.08 Q 6 3 5 Zsuzsanna Jakabos 4:32.02 Q 7 3 3 Katie Shanahan 4:32.75 Q 8 3 6 Emma Weyant 4:32.97 Q 9 3 0 Yu Yiting 4:33.29 10 2 4 Anja Crevar 4:33.30 11 3 2 Viktoriya Zeynep Güneş 4:34.42 12 4 1 Viktória Mihályvári-Farkas 4:35.69 13 4 7 Catalina Corró 4:35.74 14 4 8 Nathalia Almeida 4:36.22 15 4 2 Maria Ugolkova 4:37.75 16 4 6 Anastasiia Sorokina Russian Swimming Federation 4:38.49 17 3 8 Jung Hae-un 4:39.53 18 4 0 Nikoleta Trníková 4:39.77 19 2 3 Jimena Pérez 4:39.88 20 3 7 Kristýna Horská 4:39.90 21 3 1 Deniz Ertan 4:40.39 22 1 4 Kristen Romano 4:41.84 NR 23 2 5 Jinjutha Pholjamjumrus 4:42.18 24 4 9 Claudia Hufnagl 4:42.64 25 2 6 Chloe Cheng 4:44.53 26 2 1 Florencia Perotti 4:46.31 27 2 9 Iman Avdić 4:47.42 28 2 2 Alexandra Dobrin 4:47.99 29 2 0 Maria Romanjuk 4:50.91 30 1 5 Laura Melo 5:00.25 31 1 6 Karla Abarca 5:08.94 32 1 3 Samantha van Vuure 5:13.46 2 7 María Fe Muñoz DNS 2 8 Ashley Lim

Final The final was held at 18:49.Final results Rank Lane Name Nationality Time Notes 5 Tessa Cieplucha 4:25.55 6 Ellen Walshe 4:26.52 NR 3 Melanie Margalis 4:26.63 4 8 Emma Weyant 4:27.45 5 2 Bailey Andison 4:28.97 6 4 Ilaria Cusinato 4:29.37 7 7 Zsuzsanna Jakabos 4:31.49 8 1 Katie Shanahan 4:32.68

References