Swimming at the 1956 Summer Olympics – Women's 200 metre breaststroke

Women's 200 metre breaststroke; at the Games of the XVI Olympiad
Venue	Swimming and Diving Stadium
Date	29 November (heats); 30 November (final)
Competitors	14 from 10 nations
Winning time	2:53.1 (OR)
Medalists
	← 1952 1960 →

Swimming at the 1956 Summer Olympics
Freestyle
100 m	men	women
400 m	men	women
1500 m	men
Backstroke
100 m	men	women
Breaststroke
200 m	men	women
Butterfly
100 m		women
200 m	men
Freestyle relay
4×100 m		women
4×200 m	men

The women's 200 metre breaststroke event, included in the swimming competition at the 1956 Summer Olympics, took place on November 29–30, at the Swimming and Diving Stadium. In this event, swimmers covered four lengths of the 50-metre (160 ft) Olympic-sized pool employing the breaststroke. It was the seventh appearance of the event, which first appeared at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris. A total of 14 competitors from 10 nations participated in the event.^[1] This was a decrease from the 1952 Summer Olympics (33 competitors from 19 nations), because the breaststroke event was split into the 200m orthodox breaststroke and the 100m butterfly event.^[2]^[3]

Records

Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were:

World record	Ada den Haan (NED)	2:46.4 s	Naarden, Netherlands	13 November 1956	^[4]
Olympic record	Éva Novák-Gerard (HUN)	2:54.0 s	Helsinki, Finland	26 July 1952	^[4]

Hungarian Éva Székely originally held the Olympic record in the event after swimming a time of 2:51.7 four years ago.^[5] However Székely had used the butterfly stroke for her swim, which was now disallowed as a new 100 metre event had been introduced. Éva Novák-Gerard's time of 2:54.0 in 1952 at the same event was instead replaced as the current Olympic record.^[6]

The following records were established during the competition:

Date	Round	Name	Nationality	Time	OR	WR
November 30	Final	Ursula Happe	Germany	2:53.1	OR

Ursula Happe's Olympic record was set using a technique of swimming long distances underwater during her run. This technique would later be disallowed by FINA in the late 1950s to ensure the majority of the race was swum on the surface.^[7]^[8]

Results

Heats

Rank	Heat	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	1	Ursula Happe	Germany	2:54.1	Q
2	1	Klára Killermann	Hungary	2:54.6	Q
3	1	Elenor Gordon	Great Britain	2:55.4	Q
4	2	Éva Székely	Hungary	2:55.8	Q
5	2	Vinka Jeričević	Yugoslavia	2:56.0	Q
6	2	Eva-Maria ten Elsen	Germany	2:57.5	Q
7	2	Christine Gosden	Great Britain	2:58.2	Q
7	1	Mary Sears	United States	2:58.2	Q
9	2	Jytte Hansen	Denmark	2:59.8
10	1	Colette Goossens	Belgium	3:00.5
11	2	Éva Novák-Gerard	Hungary	3:02.7
12	2	Barbara Evans	Australia	3:03.6
13	1	Elena Zennaro	Italy	3:05.2
14	1	Ria Tobing	Indonesia	3:14.2

Finals

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
	Ursula Happe	Germany	2:53.1	OR^[4]
	Éva Székely	Hungary	2:54.8
	Eva-Maria ten Elsen	Germany	2:55.1
4	Vinka Jeričević	Yugoslavia	2:55.8
5	Klára Killermann	Hungary	2:56.1
6	Elenor Gordon	Great Britain	2:56.1
7	Mary Sears	United States	2:57.2
8	Christine Gosden	Great Britain	2:59.2