The men's 200 metre freestyle event at the 2003 World Aquatics Championships took place between 21 July – 22 July. Both the heats and semifinals were held on 21 July with the heats being held in the morning session and the semifinals being held in the evening session. The final was held on 22 July.

Records

Prior to the competition, the existing world and championship records were as follows.

	Name	Nationality	Time	Location	Date
World record	Ian Thorpe Ian Thorpe Ian James Thorpe OAM , nicknamed the Thorpedo and Thorpey, is an Australian swimmer who specialises in freestyle, but also competes in backstroke and the individual medley. He has won five Olympic gold medals, the most won by any Australian, and with three gold and two silver medals, was the most...	Australia Australia Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...	1:44.06	Fukuoka Fukuoka Fukuoka most often refers to the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture.It can also refer to:-Locations:* Fukuoka, Gifu, a town in Gifu Prefecture, Japan* Fukuoka, Toyama, a town in Toyama Prefecture, Japan...	25 July 2001
Championship record	Ian Thorpe Ian Thorpe Ian James Thorpe OAM , nicknamed the Thorpedo and Thorpey, is an Australian swimmer who specialises in freestyle, but also competes in backstroke and the individual medley. He has won five Olympic gold medals, the most won by any Australian, and with three gold and two silver medals, was the most...	Australia Australia Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...	1:44.06	Fukuoka Fukuoka Fukuoka most often refers to the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture.It can also refer to:-Locations:* Fukuoka, Gifu, a town in Gifu Prefecture, Japan* Fukuoka, Toyama, a town in Toyama Prefecture, Japan...	25 July 2001

No new world or competition records were set during this competition.

Final

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
	Ian Thorpe Ian Thorpe Ian James Thorpe OAM , nicknamed the Thorpedo and Thorpey, is an Australian swimmer who specialises in freestyle, but also competes in backstroke and the individual medley. He has won five Olympic gold medals, the most won by any Australian, and with three gold and two silver medals, was the most...		1:45.14
	Pieter van den Hoogenband Pieter van den Hoogenband Pieter Cornelis Ruud Martijn van den Hoogenband is a Dutch former swimmer and a triple Olympic champion.-Personal life:...		1:46.43
	Grant Hackett Grant Hackett Grant Hackett OAM is an Australian former swimmer most famous for winning the men's 1500 metres freestyle race at both the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney and the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. This achievement has led him to be regarded as one of the greatest distance swimmers in history...		1:46.85
4	Květoslav Svoboda Kvetoslav Svoboda Květoslav Svoboda is a freestyle swimmer from the Czech Republic, who won the silver medal in the 400m Freestyle at the 2002 FINA Short Course World Championships behind Australia's Grant Hackett. He competed in three consecutive Summer Olympics for his native country, starting in...		1:48.73
5	Andrei Kapralov		1:48.76
6	Federico Cappellazzo Federico Cappellazzo Federico Cappellazzo is an Italian freestyle swimmer.Cappellazzo's major achievement is the victory with the Italian relay in Berlin 2002.He participated for Italy in the Summer Olympic of Athens 2004....		1:48.79
7	Peter Mankoč Peter Mankoc Peter Mankoč is one of the best Slovenian swimmers of all time and one of the most successful short course European Championship swimmers in the history of the event.- Personal :...		1:48.96
8	Nate Dusing Nate Dusing Nathaniel James Dusing is a former freestyle and medley swimmer from the United States, who represented his native country at two consecutive Summer Olympics, starting in 2000 . There he won the silver medal in the 4x200 m freestyle relay, although he just swam in the prelims...		1:49.35