Swimming at the 1964 Summer Olympics – Men's 400 metre individual medley
The men's 400 metre individual medley event at the 1964 Summer Olympics took place on 12–14 October. This swimming event used medley swimming. Because an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of eight lengths of the pool. The first two lengths were swum using the butterfly stroke, the second pair with the backstroke, the third pair of lengths in breaststroke, and the final two were freestyle. Unlike other events using freestyle, swimmers could not use butterfly, backstroke, or breaststroke for the freestyle leg; most swimmers use the front crawl in freestyle events.Medalists
Results
Heats
Heat 1
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time | Note |
| 1 | Carl Robie | | 4:52.0 | |
| 2 | Ralph Hutton | | 5:06.2 | |
| 3 | John Oravainen | | 5:07.0 | |
| 4 | Stefan Weinrich | | 5:07.8 | |
| 5 | Celestino Pérez | | 5:10.9 | |
| 6 | Veljko Rogošić | | 5:11.0 | |
| 7 | Gershon Shefa | | 5:11.2 | |
Heat 2
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time | Note |
| 1 | Sandy Gilchrist | | 4:58.3 | |
| 2 | Dick Roth | | 5:01.3 | |
| 3 | Terry Buck | | 5:02.5 | |
| 4 | Elliot Chenaux | | 5:11.3 | |
| 5 | Juan Fortuny | | 5:18.2 | |
| 6 | Juan Alanís | | 5:18.6 | |
| 7 | António Basto | | 5:19.7 | |
| 8 | Luis Paz | | 5:39.5 | |
Heat 3
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time | Note |
| 1 | Roy Saari | | 5:02.3 | |
| 2 | György Kosztolánczy | | 5:03.8 | |
| 3 | Jan Jiskoot | | 5:04.4 | |
| 4 | Dieter Pfeifer | | 5:05.2 | |
| 5 | Ilkka Suvanto | | 5:09.0 | |
| 6 | Rafael Hernández | | 5:09.8 | |
| 7 | Charles Fox | | 5:38.2 | |
Heat 4
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time | Note |
| 1 | Gerhard Hetz | | 4:57.6 | |
| 2 | Csaba Ali | | 5:05.4 | |
| 3 | Olle Ferm | | 5:10.5 | |
| 4 | Alex Alexander | | 5:10.8 | |
| 5 | Gudmunður Gíslason | | 5:15.5 | |
| 6 | Hannu Vaahtoranta | | 5:16.2 | |
| 7 | Guillermo Davila | | 5:27.1 | |
| 8 | Narong Chok-Umnuay | | 5:44.1 | |
Final
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time | Notes |
| Dick Roth | | 4:45.4 | WR |
| Roy Saari | | 4:47.1 | |
| Gerhard Hetz | | 4:51.0 | |
| 4 | Carl Robie | | 4:51.4 | |
| 5 | Sandy Gilchrist | | 4:57.6 | |
| 6 | Jan Jiskoot | | 5:01.9 | |
| 7 | György Kosztolánczy | | 5:01.9 | |
| 8 | Terry Buck | | 5:03.0 | |
Key: WR = World record
