Swimming at the 1973 World Aquatics Championships – Men's 400 metre individual medley

29 swimmers participated in 4 heats, qualified swimmers are listed:[1][2]

Rank	Heat	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	4	-	Rick Colella	United States	4:38.50	Q, CR
2	1	-	András Hargitay	Hungary	4:38.96	Q, CR
3	3	-	Rod Strachan	United States	4:40.06	Q
4	4	-	Bengt Gingsjö	Sweden	4:41.23	Q
5	1	-	Wolfram Sperling	East Germany	4:41.83	Q
6	3	-	Sergey Zakharov	Soviet Union	4:41.96	Q
7	4	-	Anatoly Smirnov	Soviet Union	4:42.65	Q
8	2	-	Brian Brinkley	Great Britain	4:43.54	Q
9	1	-	Neil Martin	Australia	4:44.55
10	3	-	Patrick Moreau	France	4:45.14
11	4	-	Csaba Sós	Hungary	4:45.29
12	3	-	David Brumwell	Canada	4:45.52
13	1	-	Anders Bellbring	Sweden	4:46.56
14	2	-	Hans-Joachim Geisler	West Germany	4:47.68
15	3	-	Ignacio Álvarez	Mexico	4:48.96
16	4	-	Tsuyoshi Yanagidate	Japan	4:49.24
17	1	-	Gunnar Gundersen	Norway	4:51.46
18	2	-	Peter Tetlow	Australia	4:51.98
19	1	-	Lorenzo Marugo	Italy	4:51.98
20	4	-	Paul Hughes	Canada	4:52.00
21	2	-	François Deley	Belgium	4:52.91
22	2	-	Mark Treffers	New Zealand	4:55.35
23	3	-	Antônio Azevedo	Brazil	4:56.24
24	3	-	Ali Gharbi	Tunisia	5:04.13
25	3	-	Evangelos Koskinas	Greece	5:07.35
26	2	-	Angel Chakarov	Bulgaria	5:08.22
27	4	-	Carlos Santiago	Puerto Rico	5:08.66
28	1	-	Francisco Canales	Puerto Rico	5:09.52
29	2	-	C. Manochehr	Iran	5:41.12
–	2	-	Christian Leitzmann	East Germany	Did not finish[1]
–	1	-	L. Diaz	Argentina	Did not start
–	4	-	Bandi Wetternek	Romania	Did not start

¹ Christian Leitzmann, almost at the end at the butterfly leg, swallowed some water and abandoned the race.[3]

The results of the final are below.[4]

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
	-	András Hargitay	Hungary	4:31.11	CR, ER[3]
	-	Rod Strachan	United States	4:33.50
	-	Rick Colella	United States	4:34.68
4	-	Sergey Zakharov	Soviet Union	4:37.05
5	-	Wolfram Sperling	East Germany	4:37.17
6	-	Bengt Gingsjö	Sweden	4:37.62
7	-	Brian Brinkley	Great Britain	4:40.94	NR[5]
8	-	Anatoly Smirnov	Soviet Union	4:41.26