Swimming at the 2002 Commonwealth Games – Men's EAD 50 metre freestyle

The events were ran on a multi-disability format, which included both physically disabled and visually impaired swimmers i.e. the International Paralympic Committee’s Swimming Classification S1 – S13.[1]

• Classes S1 – S10 are allocated to swimmers with a physical disability ranging from swimmers with a severe disability (S1) to those with a minimal disability (S10).
• Classes S11 – S13 are allocated to swimmers with a visual impairment ranging from swimmers with no vision or may have light perception (S11) to those with some visual acuity (S13).

All classes, 1 through 13 swan together in 3 heats and a final event. Positions were determined by each athlete’s time relative to the current world record for the appropriate classification of the swimmer. This may have meant that the swimmer touching first may not have been the winner.

World records were the time standardised to identify both the finalists and medal winners throughout the competition. This meant that the same ‘time marker’ was used in the heats and the final irrespective of whether the world record had been broken during the course of competition.

Prior to this competition, the existing world records were as follows;

Class	Name	Time	Location	Date
S1	Itzhak Mamistalov (ISR)	1:11.30	Stockholm, Sweden	31 July 2001
S2	Curtis Lovejoy (USA)	1:10.11	Sydney, Australia	27 October 2000
S3	Jamie Eurlert (PER)	49.03	Sydney, Australia	27 October 2000
S4	Richard Orive (ESP)	38.84	Sydney, Australia	27 October 2000
S5	Sebastian Rodriguez Veloso (ESP)	33.33	Spain	26 July 2002
S6	Peter Lund Andersen (DEN)	31.26	Atlanta, United States	25 August 1996
S7	David Roberts (WAL)	28.58	Sydney, Australia	28 October 2000
S8		27.93
S9	Xiaoming Xiong (CHN)	26.36	Sydney, Australia	28 October 2000
S10	Benoit Huot (CAN)	25.04	Winnipeg, Canada	24 March 2002
S11	John Morgan (USA)	25.96	New York, United States	1 January 1987
S12	Ebert Phillipus Kleynhans (RSA)	25.79	Sydney, Australia	28 October 2000
S13	Andrey Strokin (RUS)	24.67	Sydney, Australia	28 October 2000

The following records were established during the competition:

Date	Event	Class	Name	Nationality	Time	Result	Record
1 August	Heats	S5	Chee Kin Wong	Malaysia	47.34	+13.20	GR
1 August	Heats	S6	Yusup Dewa	Malaysia	37.31	+6.05	GR
1 August	Heats	S6	Andreas Potamitis	Cyprus	35.74	+4.48	GR
1 August	Heats	S7	Alex Harris	Australia	29.50	+0.92	GR
1 August	Final	S7	David Roberts	Wales	28.71	+0.13	GR
1 August	Heats	S8	Ben Austin	Australia	27.48	−0.45	WR
1 August	Heats	S9	Aidan McGlynn	Northern Ireland	28.88	+2.52	GR
1 August	Heats	S10	Philippe Gagnon	Canada	25.41	+0.37	GR
1 August	Heats	S10	Benoit Huot	Canada	25.23	+0.19	GR
1 August	Final	S10	Philippe Gagnon	Canada	25.04	0.00	GR
1 August	Heats	S11	Ou Dona	Papua New Guinea	40.74	+14.78	GR
1 August	Heats	S12	Darren Leach	England	26.10	+0.31	GR
1 August	Final	S12		England	25.91	+0.12	GR
1 August	Heats	S13	Scott Field	South Africa	26.09	+1.42	GR