Swimming at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Women's 400 metre freestyle
| Women's 400 metre freestyle at the Games of the XXXI Olympiad
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| Venue | Olympic Aquatics Stadium | ||||||||||||
| Dates | 7 August 2016 | ||||||||||||
| Competitors | 32 from 25 nations | ||||||||||||
| Winning time | 3:56.46 WR | ||||||||||||
| Medalists | |||||||||||||
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Katie Ledecky |
 United States
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Jazmin Carlin |
 Great Britain
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Leah Smith |
United States
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The women's 400 metre freestyle event at the 2016 Summer Olympics took place on 7 August, at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium.
U.S. distance ace Katie Ledecky put together a powerful attack on her existing world record to become the first Olympic champion in the event for the Americans, since Brooke Bennett topped the podium in 2000. Leading from the start, Ledecky quickly dropped two seconds under a world-record pace, as she pulled away further from the field to smash her own record with a gold-medal time in 3:56.46. Trailing behind the leader by almost five seconds, Great Britain's distance-freestyle swimmer Jazmin Carlin fought off a tight battle against Ledecky's teammate Leah Smith on the final lap for the silver in 4:01.23. Meanwhile, Smith faded down the stretch to pick up a bronze with a 4:01.92.
Boglárka Kapás missed the podium in fourth with a Hungarian record of 4:02.37 from the outside lane, while Canada's Brittany MacLean posted a fifth-place time in 4:04.69. Australian duo Tamsin Cook (4:05.30) and Jessica Ashwood (4:05.68) kept a close race to take the sixth and seventh spots respectively, separated by a 0.4-second margin. France's three-time Olympian Coralie Balmy rounded out the top eight with a 4:06.98.
Earlier in the prelims, Ledecky opened her first individual race of the Games with a new Olympic record of 3:58.71 to immediately lock the top seed for the final, clearing a four-minute barrier in the Olympics for the first time, and slashing 2.74 seconds off the mark set in London 2012 by reigning champion Camille Muffat of France, who was killed on a helicopter crash in March 2015.
For the competition, the medals were presented by Nita Ambani, India, member of the International Olympic Committee, and the gifts were presented by Dr. Margo Mountjoy, FINA Bureau Member.
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