Swimming at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Women's 100 metre backstroke

Swimming events at the 1972 Summer Olympics
Freestyle
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
400 m	men	women
800 m		women
1500 m	men
Backstroke
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
Breaststroke
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
Butterfly
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
Individual medley
200 m	men	women
400 m	men	women
Freestyle relay
4×100 m	men	women
4×200 m	men
Medley relay
4×100 m	men	women

The women's 100 metre backstroke event at the 1972 Olympic Games took place between September 1 and 2.^[1] This swimming event used backstroke. Because an Olympic-size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of two lengths of the pool.

Medalists

Gold	Melissa Belote  United States
Silver	Andrea Gyarmati  Hungary
Bronze	Susie Atwood  United States

Results

Heats

Heat 1

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Melissa Belote	United States	1:06.60
2	Tina Lek'veishvili	Soviet Union	1:07.84
3	Marianne Vermaat	Netherlands	1:09.14
4	Susanne Niesner	Switzerland	1:09.16
5	Kazu Fujimura	Japan	1:09.81
6	Diana Ashton	Great Britain	1:10.90

Heat 2

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Wendy Cook-Hogg	Canada	1:07.00
2	Sue Lewis	Australia	1:08.06
3	Deborah Palmer	Australia	1:08.68
4	Annemarie Groen	Netherlands	1:09.55
5	Susan Hunter	New Zealand	1:10.06
6	Kikuyo Ishii	Japan	1:10.44
7	Ildikó Szekeres	Hungary	1:11.20
8	Felicia Ospitaletche	Uruguay	1:13.99

Heat 3

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Christine Herbst	East Germany	1:07.96
2	Susie Atwood	United States	1:08.30
3	Debra Cain	Australia	1:08.81
4	Sylvie Le Noach	France	1:09.25
5	Nataliya Yershova	Soviet Union	1:09.26
6	Diana Olsson	Sweden	1:09.86
7	Christine Fulcher	Ireland	1:10.63
8	Diana Sutherland	Great Britain	1:12.12

Heat 4

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Andrea Gyarmati	Hungary	1:06.56
2	Enith Brigitha	Netherlands	1:06.71
3	Annegret Kober	West Germany	1:08.24
4	Angelika Kraus	West Germany	1:08.92
5	Susanne Hilger	East Germany	1:09.25
6	Jacqueline Brown	Great Britain	1:10.43
7	Ong Mei Lin	Malaysia	1:19.39

Heat 5

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Donna-Marie Gurr	Canada	1:07.45
2	Karen Moe-Thornton	United States	1:07.69
3	Silke Pielen	West Germany	1:07.70
4	Zdenka Gašparač	Yugoslavia	1:09.72
5	Cathy Raftery	Canada	1:09.72
6	Patricia López	Argentina	1:12.13
7	María Cecilia Vargas	Mexico	1:12.91
8	Pat Chan	Singapore	1:14.24

Final

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
	Melissa Belote	United States	1:05.78	OR
	Andrea Gyarmati	Hungary	1:06.26
	Susie Atwood	United States	1:06.34
4	Karen Moe	United States	1:06.69
5	Wendy Cook-Hogg	Canada	1:06.70
6	Enith Brigitha	Netherlands	1:06.82
7	Christine Herbst	East Germany	1:07.27
8	Silke Pielen	West Germany	1:07.36

Key: OR = Olympic record

References