Swimming at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Women's 400 metre individual medley

Swimming events at the 1972 Summer Olympics
Freestyle
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
400 m	men	women
800 m		women
1500 m	men
Backstroke
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
Breaststroke
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
Butterfly
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
Individual medley
200 m	men	women
400 m	men	women
Freestyle relay
4×100 m	men	women
4×200 m	men
Medley relay
4×100 m	men	women

The women's 400 metre individual medley event at the 1972 Summer Olympics took place August 31. This swimming event used medley swimming. Because an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of eight lengths of the pool. The first two lengths were swum using the butterfly stroke, the second pair with the backstroke, the third pair of lengths in breaststroke, and the final two were freestyle. Unlike other events using freestyle, swimmers could not use butterfly, backstroke, or breaststroke for the freestyle leg; most swimmers use the front crawl in freestyle events.

Medalists

Gold	Gail Neall Australia
Silver	Leslie Cliff Canada
Bronze	Novella Calligaris Italy

Results

Heats

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Final

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
	Gail Neall	Australia	5:02.97	WR
	Leslie Cliff	Canada	5:03.57
	Novella Calligaris	Italy	5:03.99
4	Jenny Bartz	United States	5:05.56
5	Evelyn Stolze	East Germany	5:06.80
6	Mary Montgomery	United States	5:09.98
7	Lynn Vidali	United States	5:13.06
8	Nina Petrova	Soviet Union	5:15.68