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	Men's 500 metre freestyle; at the Games of the I Olympiad
Venue	Bay of Zea
Date	April 11
Competitors	3 from 2 nations
Winning time	8:12.6
Medalists
	Paul Neumann; Austria
	Antonios Pepanos; Greece
	Efstathios Chorafas; Greece

The men's 500 metre freestyle was one of the swimming events in the 1896 Summer Olympics.

Only three swimmers swam in the 500 metre freestyle. Paul Neumann won the event. Alfréd Hajós, the winner of the 100m, tried to win all 3 open swimming events. However, he did not swim in the 500m because it started after the 100 metres. Efstathios Chorafas was the only swimmer to swim in all three events.

Background

This was the only Olympic Games with a 500-metre freestyle swimming event. The 1900 Olympics had 200- and 1000-metre events. In the 1904 Olympics, the 400-metre swim was used. This became the standard for swimming after that.^[1]

Competition

This freestyle swimming competition was in a single race. All of the swimmers swam at the same time. The swimmers were taken out by a ship into the Bay of Zea. The swimmers would swim back to the shore.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Schedule

The 500 metre freestyle was the third of the swimming events.^[2]

Date		Time	Round
Gregorian	Julian	Time	Round
Saturday, 11 April 1896	Saturday, 30 March 1896	11:00	Final

Results

Swimmer	Nation	Time
Paul Neumann	Austria	8:12.6
Antonios Pepanos	Greece	9:57.6
Efstathios Chorafas	Greece	Unknown

References

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 "500 metres Freestyle, Men". Olympedia. Retrieved 18 December 2020.
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 Official Report, part 2, p. 96.
↑ "Athens 1896 Swimming 400m Freestyle Men Result". Olympics.com. Retrieved 2021-09-03.

Lampros, S.P.; Polites, N.G.; De Coubertin, Pierre; Philemon, P.J. & Anninos, C. (1897). The Olympic Games: BC 776 – AD 1896. Athens: Charles Beck. (Digitally available at [1] Archived 2008-05-27 at the Wayback Machine)
Mallon, Bill & Widlund, Ture (1998). The 1896 Olympic Games. Results for All Competitors in All Events, with Commentary. Jefferson: McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-0379-9. (Excerpt available at [2] Archived 2008-04-11 at the Wayback Machine)
Smith, Michael Llewellyn (2004). Olympics in Athens 1896. The Invention of the Modern Olympic Games. London: Profile Books. ISBN 1-86197-342-X.