Swimming at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Women's 200 metre backstroke

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 200 metre backstroke event at the 1972 Olympic Games took place September 4.^[1] This swimming event used backstroke. Because an Olympic-size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of four lengths of the pool.

Medalists

Gold	Melissa Belote  United States
Silver	Susie Atwood  United States
Bronze	Donna Gurr  Canada

Results

Heats

Heat 1

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Annegret Kober	West Germany	2:24.88
2	Wendy Cook-Hogg	Canada	2:25.71
3	Suzuko Matsumura	Japan	2:26.95
4	María Teresa Ramírez	Mexico	2:27.47
5	Annemarie Groen	Netherlands	2:29.17
6	Diana Ashton	Great Britain	2:29.95

Heat 2

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Susie Atwood	United States	2:22.13
2	Deborah Palmer	Australia	2:24.25
3	Susanne Hilger	East Germany	2:27.88
4	Susan Hunter	New Zealand	2:28.28
5	Kikuyo Ishii	Japan	2:29.66
6	Zdenka Gašparač	Yugoslavia	2:33.57
7	Christine Fulcher	Ireland	2:33.73
8	Pat Chan	Singapore	2:41.27

Heat 3

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Leslie Cliff	Canada	2:25.08
2	Karin Bormann	West Germany	2:25.59
3	Lynn Skrifvars	United States	2:26.40
4	Debra Cain	Australia	2:27.14
5	Josien Elzerman	Netherlands	2:28.18
6	Kazu Fujimura	Japan	2:30.37
7	Felicia Ospitaletche	Uruguay	2:37.88

Heat 4

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Enith Brigitha	Netherlands	2:23.70
2	Donna-Marie Gurr	Canada	2:25.33
3	Sylvie Le Noach	France	2:27.18
4	Tina Lek'veishvili	Soviet Union	2:28.22
5	Susanne Niesner	Switzerland	2:28.62
6	Pamela Bairstow	Great Britain	2:29.28
7	María Cecilia Vargas	Mexico	2:37.54
8	Ong Mei Lin	Malaysia	2:46.40

Heat 5

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Melissa Belote	United States	2:20.58
2	Christine Herbst	East Germany	2:25.09
3	Sue Lewis	Australia	2:25.34
4	Andrea Gyarmati	Hungary	2:25.81
5	Nataliya Yershova	Soviet Union	2:29.46
6	Angelika Kraus	West Germany	2:31.16
7	Patricia López	Argentina	2:33.41
8	Diana Sutherland	Great Britain	2:37.61

Final

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
	Melissa Belote	United States	2:19.19	WR
	Susie Atwood	United States	2:20.38
	Donna Gurr	Canada	2:23.22
4	Annegret Kober	West Germany	2:23.35
5	Christine Herbst	East Germany	2:23.44
6	Enith Brigitha	Netherlands	2:23.70
7	Deborah Palmer	Australia	2:24.65
8	Leslie Cliff	Canada	2:25.80

Key: WR = World record

References