Swimming at the 1936 Summer Olympics – Men's 100 metre freestyle

This was the ninth appearance of the men's 100 metre freestyle. The event has been held at every Summer Olympics except 1900 (when the shortest freestyle was the 200 metres), though the 1904 version was measured in yards rather than metres.[2]

None of the six finalists from 1932 returned. American Peter Fick, the world record holder, was a slight favorite. The Japanese team was strong once again. European champion Ferenc Csik of Hungary was considered a tier below the Americans and Japanese.[2]

Bermuda, Bolivia, the Republic of China, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, and Peru each made their debut in the event. The United States made its ninth appearance, having competed at each edition of the event to date.

This freestyle swimming competition used a three-round (quarterfinals, semifinals, final) format. The advancement rule was a modification of the one used since 1912, allowing the top swimmers in each race plus one or more wild cards to advance. For this event, the top two in each preliminary heat plus the next two fastest swimmers would advance to the semifinals; the top three in each semifinal plus the fastest fourth-place swimmer would move on to the final. There were 7 heats of between 6 and 8 swimmers, allowing 16 swimmers to advance to the semifinals. The 2 semifinals had 8 swimmers each; 7 advanced to the final.

Each race involved two lengths of the 50-metre pool.

These were the standing world and Olympic records (in seconds) prior to the 1936 Summer Olympics.

World record	Peter Fick (USA)	56.4	New Haven, United States	11 February 1936
Olympic record	Yasuji Miyazaki (JPN)	58.0	Los Angeles, United States	6 August 1932

Peter Fick set a new Olympic record in the first heat with 57.6 seconds. In the fifth heat Masaharu Taguchi bettered the Olympic record with 57.5 seconds. Masanori Yusa equalized this record in the second semifinal with 57.5 seconds.

• Olympic Report
• Wudarski, Pawel (1999). "Wyniki Igrzysk Olimpijskich" (in Polish). Retrieved 12 November 2008.