The women's 200 metre breaststroke event at the 1936 Summer Olympics, took place from 8 to 11 August, at the (50 m) Olympiapark Schwimmstadion Berlin. It was the fourth appearance of the event, which first appeared at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris. A total of 23 competitors from 12 nations participated in the event.[1]
The world record holder at the time, JapaneseHideko Maehata, won the event four years after losing the gold medal to AustralianClare Dennis by one tenth of a second. Twenty four-year-old German silver medalist Martha Genenger broke the Olympic record in her heat on 8 August, but Maebata broke it again in the next heat with a time of 3:01.9 seconds.[1]DanishInge Sørensen won the bronze medal, becoming the youngest ever female Olympic medalist (12 years, 24 days).[2] Sørensen's compatriot Valborg Christensen was favoured to win a medal in this event, but she was eliminated after finishing fifth in her semifinal.[3]
Records
Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were:
The three fastest swimmers of each heat and the next two fastest swimmers overall (Hanni Hölzner and Dorothy Schiller) advanced to the semifinals on 9 August.[7]