Swimming at the 1973 World Aquatics Championships – Men's 200 metre breaststroke

Men's 200 metre breaststroke
at the 1973 World Aquatics Championships
Men's 200 metre breaststroke ; at the 1973 World Aquatics Championships
Dates	September 6, 1973
Competitors	31 from 24 nations
Winning time	2:19.28
Medalists
	1975 →

The men's 200 metre breaststroke competition of the swimming events at the 1973 World Aquatics Championships took place on September 6.

Records

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

World record	John Hencken (USA)	2:20.52	Louisville, United States	24 August 1973
Competition record	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

The following records were established during the competition:

Date	Event	Name	Nationality	Time	Record
6 September	Heat 1	Mikhail Khryukin	Soviet Union	2:24.85	CR
6 September	Heat 2	David Wilkie	United Kingdom	2:20.94	CR
6 September	Final	David Wilkie	United Kingdom	2:19.28	WR

31 swimmers participated in 4 heats. Th eight fastest times advanced to the final.^[1]^[2]

Rank	Heat	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	2	-	David Wilkie	Great Britain	2:20.94	Q, CR, CWR^[3]
2	4	-	John Hencken	United States	2:21.50	Q
3	2	-	Igor Cherdakov	Soviet Union	2:24.30	Q
4	1	-	Mikhail Khryukin	Soviet Union	2:24.85	Q, CR
5	1	-	Nobutaka Taguchi	Japan	2:25.45	Q
6	2	-	Nigel Cluer	Papua New Guinea	2:25.87	Q
7	3	-	Rick Colella	United States	2:26.17	Q
8	3	-	Jürgen Glas	East Germany	2:27.77	Q
9	4	-	Felipe Muñoz	Mexico	2:28.34
10	2	-	Giorgio Lalle	Italy	2:29.08
11	3	-	Ove Wisloff	Norway	2:29.46
12	2	-	Pedro Balcells	Spain	2:30.52
13	4	-	Ulrich Nitzsche	East Germany	2:31.01
14	1	-	Peter Hrdlitschka	Canada	2:31.34
15	3	-	Steffen Kriechbaum	Austria	2:31.56
16	4	-	Cezary Smiglak	Poland	2:32.50
17	3	-	Pawe Dyrek	Poland	2:32.66
18	2	-	Mel Zajac	Canada	2:33.15
19	1	-	Michael Creswick	Australia	2:33.34
20	1	-	G. Islas	Mexico	2:33.99
21	4	-	Sérgio Pinto Ribeiro	Brazil	2:34.07
22	1	-	Alfredo Hunger	Peru	2:34.78
23	3	-	Tuomo Kerolo	Finland	2:35.29
24	4	-	Bernard Combet	France	2:35.34
25	2	-	Zdravko Divjak	Yugoslavia	2:38.50
26	2	-	Orlando Catinchi	Puerto Rico	2:40.14
27	1	-	Carlos Nazario	Puerto Rico	2:43.79
28	3	-	Faruk Morkal	Turkey	2:44.12
29	4	-	H. Ashfin	Iran	2:48.80
–	4	-	Angel Chakarov	Bulgaria	Did not start
–	3	-	Anders Norling	Sweden	Did not start

The results of the final are below.^[4]

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
	4	David Wilkie	Great Britain	2:19.28	WR
	5	John Hencken	United States	2:19.95
	-	Nobutaka Taguchi	Japan	2:23.11
4	-	Mikhail Khryukin	Soviet Union	2:23.47
5	-	Nigel Cluer	Papua New Guinea	2:25.87
6	-	Rick Colella	United States	2:26.41
7	-	Jürgen Glas	East Germany	2:26.56
8	-	Igor Cherdakov	Soviet Union	2:28.18

^ "Cooper Heads 400m Finalist". The Sydney Morning Herald. John Fairfax Holdings. AAP. 7 September 1973. p. 19.
^ "Official results". FINA.org. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
^ Fox, Norman (7 September 1973). "Wilkie's world record and gold medal". The Times. London. p. 11.
^ Krastev, Todor. "Men 200m Breastroke Swimming World Championship 1973 Belgrade (YUG)". todor66.com. Retrieved 29 May 2013.