[1] Reigning world champion Park Tae-Hwan made an Olympic milestone to become South Korea's first ever gold medalist in swimming.

[2][3][4] Coming from sixth place in the final lap, China's Zhang Lin delighted the home crowd with a silver-medal effort in 3:42.44.

[5] American Peter Vanderkaay delivered a strong swim with a fourth-place effort in 3:43.11, just 0.35 of a second ahead of Tunisia's Oussama Mellouli, who established a new African record of 3:43.45.

Leading the field in the first 100 metres, Australia's Grant Hackett, the silver medalist in the event from Athens, could not keep the pace over the final laps, and settled only for sixth place with a time of 3:43.84.

Russian duo Yuri Prilukov (3:43.97) and Nikita Lobintsev (3:48.29) rounded out the final.