Swimming at the 1956 Summer Olympics – Women's 400 metre freestyle
Rank Athlete Country Time
1 Dawn Fraser Australia 5:02.5
2 Sylvia Ruuska United States 5:10.3
3 Ripszima Székely Hungary 5:10.5
4 Susan Roberts South Africa 5:16.8
5 Colette Thomas France 5:23.9
6 Birgitta Wängberg Sweden 5:27.0
7 Eiko Wada Japan 5:27.2
Results -- Heats
Heat 1 Heat 2 Heat 3
The women's 400 metre freestyle event at the 1956 Olympic Games took place between December 5 and 7. 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 eight lengths of the pool.