European Athletics Championships 1950/400 m men

4. European Athletics Championships
discipline	Men's 400-meter run
city	Brussels
Stadion	Heysel Stadium
Attendees	25 athletes from 16 countries
Competition phase	August 23 (preliminary) August 24 (semi-finals) August 25 (final)
Medalist
gold	Derek Pugh ( GBR )
silver	Jacques Lunis ( FRA )
bronze	Lars-Erik Wolfbrandt ( SWE )

The Heysel Stadium in Brussels in an aerial photo from 1935

The men's 400-meter race at the 1950 European Athletics Championships was held from 23 to 25 August 1950 in the Heysel Stadium in the Belgian capital, Brussels .

European champion was the Briton Derek Pugh . He won ahead of the French Jacques Lunis . Bronze went to the Swede Lars-Erik Wolfbrandt .

Records

Existing records

World record	45.8 s	George Rhoden	Eskilstuna , Sweden	22nd August 1950
European record	46.0 s	Rudolf Harbig	Frankfurt am Main , Germany	August 12, 1939
Championship record	47.4 s	Godfrey Brown	EM Paris , France	September 4, 1938

Record improvement

European champion Derek Pugh improved the championship record by a tenth of a second to 47.3 s in the final.  

Preliminary round

23 August 1950, 6:30 p.m.

The preliminary round was carried out in six runs. The first two athletes per run - highlighted in light blue - qualified for the semi-finals. In contrast to other competitions, the distribution of the participants in the preliminary runs was reasonably balanced in this discipline.

Forward 1

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)
1	Leslie Lewis	Great Britain	49.8
2	Ragnar Graeffe	Finland	50.1
DNS	Canekudis	Greece
	Ásmundur Bjarnason	Iceland

Forward 2

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)
1	Derek Pugh	Great Britain	49.5
2	Guðmundur Lárusson	Iceland	49.8
DNS	Kilirenko	Soviet Union

Forward 3

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)
1	Jacques Lunis	France	48.9
2	Gösta Brännström	Sweden	49.7
3	Jean-Baptiste Peeters	Belgium	50.8
DNS	Rasouin	Luxembourg

Forward 4

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)
1	Lars-Erik Wolfbrandt	Sweden	48.8
2	Rolf Back	Finland	49.0
3	Aleš Poděbrad	Czechoslovakia	49.7
DNS	Moina	Romania

Forward 5

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)
1	Luigi Paterlini	Italy	49.0
2	René Leroux	France	49.3
3	Zvonko Sabolović	Yugoslavia	49.5
DNS	Dogan Acarbay	Turkey

Forward 6

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)
1	Antonio Siddi	Italy	49.7
2	Oscar Soetewey	Belgium	49.8
3	Lazar Miloševski ,	Yugoslavia	50.6
DNS	Komarovsky	Soviet Union

Semifinals

Gösta Brännström ( left ) was eliminated in fourth place in his semi-final run

August 22, 1950, 5:25 p.m.

In each of the two semi-finals, the first three athletes - highlighted in light blue - qualified for the final.

Run 1

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)
1	Jacques Lunis	France	47.8
2	Leslie Lewis	Great Britain	47.9
3	Guðmundur Lárusson	Iceland	48.0
4th	Gösta Brännström	Sweden	48.5
5	Antonio Siddi	Italy	48.9
6th	Ragnar Graeffe	Finland	49.5

Run 2

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)
1	Derek Pugh	Great Britain	48.6
2	Lars-Erik Wolfbrandt	Sweden	48.8
3	Luigi Paterlini	Italy	49.2
4th	Rolf Back	Finland	48.2
5	Oscar Soetewey	Belgium	51.4
DNS	René Leroux	France

final

August 22, 1950, 5.45 p.m.

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)
1	Derek Pugh	Great Britain	47.3 CR
2	Jacques Lunis	France	47.6
3	Lars-Erik Wolfbrandt	Sweden	47.9
4th	Guðmundur Lárusson	Iceland	48.1
5	Leslie Lewis	Great Britain	48.7
6th	Luigi Paterlini	Italy	48.9

• 

  Vice European Champion Jacques Luni

• 

  Bronze medalist
  Lars-Erik Wolfbrandt

Web links

• European Athletics Championships - Brussels 1950 from the European Athletics homepage , accessed on March 27, 2019
• Men 400m European Championship 1950 Brussels on todor66.com, accessed March 27, 2019
• IV European Championship, Brussels 1950 from trackfield.brinkster.net, accessed on March 27, 2019
• Results of all European Athletics Championships - 1950, 400 m men on sportschau.de, accessed on March 27, 2019
• 4th European Athletics Championships 1950 in Brussels, Belgium from ifosta.de, accessed on March 27, 2019

References and comments

1. ↑ IAAF world records. 400m men , accessed March 27, 2019
2. ↑ The information in the sources mentioned on the IAAF homepage and todor66.com differ here. On the page at todor.com, additional athletes are listed whose participation seems very likely, because the division of the preliminary runs looks much more balanced overall. However, there are also clear misstatements in the case of athletes who are mentioned several times in one and the same heat or in different heats. The most likely variants are listed in the article here.