The Men's EAD 50 metre freestyle event at the 2002 Commonwealth Games was held on 1 August at the Manchester Aquatics Centre.

The events were run 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.

Positions were determined by each athlete’s time relative to the current world record for the appropriate classification of the swimmer.

World records were 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.