The women's 400 metre freestyle event at the 1960 Olympic Games

1960 Summer Olympics

The 1960 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held from August 25 to September 11, 1960 in Rome, Italy...

 took place between August 31 and September 1. This swimming

Swimming (sport)

Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...

 event used freestyle swimming

Freestyle swimming

Freestyle is an unregulated swimming style used in swimming competitions according to the rules of FINA. The front crawl stroke is almost universally used during a freestyle race, as this style is generally the fastest...

, which means that the method of the stroke is not regulated (unlike backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly events). Nearly all swimmers use the front crawl

Front crawl

The front crawl, forward crawl, or freestyle is a swimming stroke usually regarded as the fastest of the four front primary strokes. As such, the front crawl stroke is nearly universally used during a freestyle swimming competition, hence the synonymously used term "freestyle". It is one of two...

 or a variant of that stroke. Because an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of eight lengths of the pool.

Medalists

Final

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
	Chris von Saltza Chris von Saltza Susan Christina von Saltza is a former competitive freestyle swimmer from the United States who, at the age of 16, won one silver and three gold medals at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy. She set the world record in the 400 meter freestyle at the U.S. Olympic trials...		4:50.6	OR
	Jane Cederqvist Jane Cederqvist Jane Cederqvist was a freestyle swimmer, Olympic silver medalist and the Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal winner from Sweden...		4:53.9
	Tineke Lagerberg Tineke Lagerberg Catharina Bernadetta Jacoba Lagerberg is a retired Dutch swimmer in the freestyle, who won the bronze medal in the 400 metres freestyle at the 1960 Summer Olympics in a time of 4:56.9. With the 4×100 m medley relay team, Lagerberg finished fourth at the same competition...		4:56.9
4	Ilsa Konrads Ilsa Konrads Ilsa Konrads was an Australian freestyle swimmer of the 1950s and 1960s, who won silver in the 4x100 m freestyle relay at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. In her career, she set 12 individual world records, and after her swimming career ended, was the Australasian editor of Belle...		4:57.9
5	Dawn Fraser Dawn Fraser Dawn Fraser AO, MBE is an Australian champion swimmer. She is one of only two swimmers to win the same Olympic event three times – in her case the 100 meters freestyle....		4:58.5
6	Nan Rae		4:59.7
7	Corrie Schimmel		5:02.3
8	Birgitta "Bibbi" Segerström		5:02.4

Key: OR = Olympic record