Swimming at the 1979 Pan American Games – Men's 400 metre individual medley

Men's 400 metre individual medley at the 1979 Pan American Games
Venue	Piscina Olimpica Del Escambron
Dates	July 3 (preliminaries and finals)
Competitors	- from - nations
Medalists
Jesse Vassallo   United States   Bill Sawchuk   Canada   Alex Baumann   Canada
«1975 1983»

Swimming at the 1979 Pan American Games
Freestyle
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
400 m	men	women
800 m		women
1500 m	men
Backstroke
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
Breaststroke
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
Butterfly
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
Individual medley
200 m	men	women
400 m	men	women
Freestyle relay
4×100 m	men	women
4×200 m	men
Medley relay
4×100 m	men	women
v t e

The men's 400 metre individual medley competition of the swimming events at the 1979 Pan American Games took place on 3 July at the Piscina Olimpica Del Escambron.^[1] The last Pan American Games champion was Steve Furniss of the United States.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]}

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.^[8]

All times shown are in minutes and seconds.

The first round was held on July 3.^[1]

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Bill Sawchuk	Canada	4:33.97	Q
2	Jesse Vassallo	United States	4:34.14	Q
3	Alex Baumann	Canada	4:35.42	Q
4	Guillermo Zavala	Mexico	4:35.93	Q, NR
5	Glynn Perry	United States	4:38.32	Q
6	Andrey Aguilar	Costa Rica	4:41.43	Q
7	Jorge Varela	Mexico	4:41.52	Q
8	Ricardo Prado	Brazil	4:41.89	Q
9	Antonio Cerezo	Puerto Rico	4:44.31
10	Pablo Restrepo	Colombia	4:45.64
11	Scott Newkirk	U.S. Virgin Islands	4:46.38	NR
12	Roger Madruga	Brazil	4:49.88
13	Jean François	Venezuela	4:50.11
14	Emilio Abreu	Paraguay	4:52.85
15	Andrew Philipps	Jamaica	4:55.55
16	Enrique Leite	Uruguay	4:59.59
17	Jorge Sanchez	Panama	5:03.28	NR
18	Oscar Moreno	El Salvador	5:11.75
19	Victor Masalles	Dominican Republic	5:25.56

The final was held on July 3.^[1]

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
	Jesse Vassallo	United States	4:21.63	NR, GR
	Bill Sawchuk	Canada	4:30.21
	Alex Baumann	Canada	4:32.42
4	Glynn Perry	United States	4:32.53
5	Jorge Varela	Mexico	4:39.11
6	Andrey Aguilar	Costa Rica	4:39.44	NR
7	Ricardo Prado	Brazil	4:41.16
8	Guilermo Zavala	Mexico	DQ