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Swimming at the 1956 Summer Olympics - Women's 100 metre freestyle

Women's 100 metre freestyle
at the Games of the XVI Olympiad
Venue Swimming and Diving Stadium
Date 29 November (heats)
30 November (semifinals)
1 December (final)
Competitors 35 from 16 nations
Winning time 1:02.0 (WR)
Medalists
1st, gold medalist(s) Dawn Fraser  Australia
2nd, silver medalist(s) Lorraine Crapp  Australia
3rd, bronze medalist(s) Faith Leech  Australia
← 1952
1960 →
1st, gold medalist(s) Dawn Fraser  Australia
2nd, silver medalist(s) Lorraine Crapp  Australia
3rd, bronze medalist(s) Faith Leech  Australia

The women's 100 metre freestyle event at the 1956 Olympic Games took place from November 29 to December 1. This swimming event used freestyle swimming, which means that the method of the stroke is not regulated (unlike backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly events). Nearly all swimmers use the front crawl or a variant of that stroke. Because an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of two lengths of the pool.

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

The following records were established during the competition:

Key: WR = World record


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