Swimming at the 1968 Summer Olympics – Men's 100 metre freestyle
Rank Heat Swimmer Nation Time Notes
1 8 Mike Wenden Australia 53.6 Q
2 4 Zac Zorn United States 54.2 Q
3 7 Georgijs Kuļikovs Soviet Union 54.3 Q
4 2 Luis Nicolao Argentina 54.6 Q
4 5 Mark Spitz United States 54.6 Q
6 6 Sergey Gusev Soviet Union 54.8 Q
6 8 Bob Windle Australia 54.8 Q
8 5 José Antonio Chicoy Spain 54.9 Q
8 3 Leonid Ilyichov Soviet Union 54.9 Q
8 1 Michel Rousseau France 54.9 Q
11 4 Wolfgang Kremer West Germany 55.0 Q
12 4 Gábor Kucsera Hungary 55.1 Q
12 2 Bobby McGregor Great Britain 55.1 Q
14 1 Lester Eriksson Sweden 55.2 Q
15 6 John Gilchrist Canada 55.4 Q
15 2 Greg Rogers Australia 55.4 Q
17 3 Kunihiro Iwasaki Japan 55.5 Q
17 5 François Simons Belgium 55.5 Q
19 7 Pietro Boscaini Italy 55.7 Q
19 3 Gary Goodner Puerto Rico 55.7 Q
Results -- Heats
There were 9 heats in this category . 24 fastest swimmers from the heats advanced to the semifinals .
The men's 100 metre freestyle event at the 1968 Olympic Games took place between 18 and 19 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 two lengths of the pool.