Swimming at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Men's 200 metre breaststroke
| Men's 200 metre breaststroke at the Games of the XXXI Olympiad
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| Venue | Olympic Aquatics Stadium | ||||||||||||
| Dates | 9 August 2016 (heats & semifinals) 10 August 2016 (final) |
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| Competitors | 39 from 30 nations | ||||||||||||
| Winning time | 2:07.46 NR | ||||||||||||
| Medalists | |||||||||||||
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Dmitriy Balandin |
 Kazakhstan
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Josh Prenot |
 United States
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Anton Chupkov |
 Russia
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The men's 200 metre breaststroke event at the 2016 Summer Olympics took place between 9–10 August at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium.
Double Asian Games champion Dmitriy Balandin surprised the field of breaststrokers from the outside to become Kazakhstan's first ever gold medalist in swimming. Coming from behind in lane eight, he produced a late surge about the midway of the final leg to upset the pool for an unexpected Olympic triumph with a 2:07.46. U.S. top-ranked breaststroker Josh Prenot nearly charged to the front at the final stretch, before fading to a runner-up finish in 2:07.53, a 0.07 of a second behind the Kazakh. Meanwhile, Russia's Anton Chupkov claimed the final podium spot, putting up a time of 2:07.70 to take the bronze.
Great Britain's Andrew Willis improved upon his eighth-place feat from London 2012 to finish fourth with a 2:07.78, narrowly missing out of medals by 0.08 of a second. Japan's Yasuhiro Koseki seized a comfortable lead throughout the majority of the race, but slipped down the home stretch to fifth in 2:07.80. Koseki's teammate Ippei Watanabe posted a sixth-place time in 2:07.87, while defending World champion Marco Koch of Germany (2:08.00) and Prenot's fellow countryman Kevin Cordes (2:08.34) rounded out the top eight.
In the semifinals, Watanabe threw down a top-seeded time of 2:07.22 in the semifinals to slice 0.07 seconds off the existing Olympic record set by Hungary's defending champion Dániel Gyurta, who had narrowly missed the top sixteen field earlier in the heats.
Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.
The following records were established during the competition:
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