Swimming at the 1980 Summer Olympics – Men's 400 metre individual medley

Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.

World record	Jesse Vassallo (USA)	4:20.05	West Berlin, West Germany	28 August 1978
Olympic record	Rod Strachan (USA)	4:23.68	Montreal, Canada	25 July 1976

The following records were established during the competition:

Date	Event	Name	Nationality	Time	Record
27 July	Final	Aleksandr Sidorenko	Soviet Union	4:22.89	OR

Heats

Rank	Heat	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	1	Zoltán Verrasztó	Hungary	4:25.57	Q
2	1	Leszek Górski	Poland	4:26.02	Q
3	3	András Hargitay	Hungary	4:27.00	Q
4	4	Aleksandr Sidorenko	Soviet Union	4:28.02	Q
5	3	Sergey Fesenko	Soviet Union	4:28.18	Q
6	3	Daniel Machek	Czechoslovakia	4:28.66	Q
7	2	Djan Madruga	Brazil	4:28.77	Q
8	2	Miloslav Roľko	Czechoslovakia	4:29.19	Q
9	2	Simon Gray	Great Britain	4:29.43
10	4	Csaba Sós	Hungary	4:29.69
11	3	Dariusz Wolny	Poland	4:31.28
12	1	Ricardo Prado	Brazil	4:31.69
13	4	Thomas Lejdström	Sweden	4:33.05
14	2	Giovanni Franceschi	Italy	4:33.66
15	3	Vladimir Shemetov	Soviet Union	4:34.01
16	2	Paul Moorfoot	Australia	4:34.28
17	4	Stephen Poulter	Great Britain	4:35.21
18	3	Franky de Groote	Belgium	4:36.99
19	3	Guillermo Zavala	Mexico	4:37.58
20	1	Evangelos Koskinas	Greece	4:39.44
21	2	Gary Andersson	Sweden	4:41.32
22	1	Andrey Aguilar	Costa Rica	4:41.74
23	1	Rafael Escalas	Spain	4:42.49
	4	Jörg Walter	East Germany	DSQ
	2	Antonio Monteiro	Spain	DNS
	4	Jean-Marc Carezic	Venezuela
	4	Max Metzker	Australia

Final

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
	Aleksandr Sidorenko	Soviet Union	4:22.89	OR
	Sergey Fesenko	Soviet Union	4:23.43
	Zoltán Verrasztó	Hungary	4:24.24
4	András Hargitay	Hungary	4:24.48
5	Djan Madruga	Brazil	4:26.81
6	Miloslav Roľko	Czechoslovakia	4:26.99
7	Leszek Górski	Poland	4:28.89
8	Daniel Machek	Czechoslovakia	4:29.86