1,500 metres Freestyle, Men

Any expectations of another duel between the two main protagonists in the 400 metre event were extinguished when a pair of Japanese schoolboys dominated the semi-finals. At just seventeen years old, Shozo Makino was still two and a half years older than his team-mate Kuzuo Kitamura. The final did indeed develop into a battle between the two but followed a different pattern to the 400 metres as they swam together for the first 300 metres before Kitamura pulled ahead over the last two lengths. At 14 years, 309 days old, Kuzuo Kitamura remains to this day the youngest male winner of an individual Olympic gold medal. Both the Japanese came close to Arne Borg’s supposedly unbeatable world record.