Swimming at the 2003 World Aquatics Championships – Women's 1500 metre freestyle
# Swimming at the 2003 World Aquatics Championships – Women's 1500 metre freestyle

The Women's 1500m Freestyle event at the 10th FINA World Aquatics Championships swam on 21–22 July 2003 in Barcelona, Spain. Preliminary heats swam during the morning session on July 21, with the top-8 finishers advancing to swim again in the event's Final during the evening session on July 22.

At the start of the event, the World (WR) and Championship (CR) records were:

* WR: 15:52.10 swum by Janet Evans (USA) on March 26, 1988 in Orlando, USA.
* CR: 16:01.02 swum by Hannah Stockbauer (Germany) on July 28, 2001 in Fukuoka, Japan

## Results

### Final

| Place | Swimmer | Nation | Time | Notes |
| - | - | - | - | - |
| 1 | Hannah Stockbauer | Germany | 16:00.18 | CR |
| 2 | Hayley Peirsol | USA | 16:09.64 | |
| 3 | Jana Henke | Germany | 16:10.13 | |
| 4 | Regina Sych | Russia | 16:13.13 | NR |
| 5 | Diana Munz | USA | 16:14.28 | |
| 6 | Brittany Reimer | Canada | 16:15.98 | |
| 7 | Rebecca Cooke | Great Britain | 16:20.41 | |
| 8 | Chen Hua | China | 16:29.06 | |

### Preliminaries

| Rank | Heat+Lane | Swimmer | Nation | Time | Notes |
| - | - | - | - | - | - |
| 1 | H2 L5 | Chen Hua | China | 16:15.55 | q |
| 2 | H1 L4 | Jana Henke | Germany | 16:15.93 | q |
| 3 | H3 L4 | Hannah Stockbauer | Germany | 16:15.95 | q |
| 4 | H3 L3 | Brittany Reimer | Canada | 16:16.21 | q |
| 5 | H2 L4 | Diana Munz | United States | 16:16.78 | q |
| 6 | H1 L5 | Rebecca Cooke | Great Britain | 16:17.95 | q |
| 7 | H2 L8 | Hayley Peirsol | United States | 16:20.34 | q |
| 8 | H1 L2 | Regina Sych | Russia | 16:23.33 | q |
| 9 | H3 L6 | Simona Păduraru | Romania | 16:25.50 | |
| 10 | H1 L1 | Olga Beresneva | Ukraine | 16:27.76 | NR |
| 11 | H2 L7 | Erika Villaécija | Spain | 16:32.17 | |
| 12 | H2 L2 | Ai Shibata | Japan | 16:32.19 | |
| 13 | H2 L3 | Taryn Lencoe | Canada | 16:35.83 | |
| 14 | H1 L6 | Amanda Pascoe | Australia | 16:38.70 | |
| 15 | H3 L1 | Jana Pechanová | Czech Republic | 16:39.75 | |
| 16 | H2 L6 | Réka Nagy | Hungary | 16:41.81 | |
| 17 | H3 L2 | Nayara Ribeiro | Brazil | 16:43.97 | |
| 18 | H3 L5 | Sashiko Yamada | Japan | 16:45.48 | |
| 19 | H3 L7 | Sarah Paton | Australia | 16:57.10 | |
| 20 | H2 L1 | Anja Čarman | Slovenia | 16:58.64 | |
| 21 | H1 L7 | Maria Bulakhova | Russia | 17:00.55 | |
| 22 | H1 L3 | Zhang Yan | China | 17:14.85 | |
| 23 | H3 L8 | Andrea De León | Uruguay | 18:05.05 | |
