1908 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 5 Miles (Men)

sport	athletics
discipline	5 mile run
gender	Men
place	White City Stadium
Attendees	35 athletes from 14 countries
Competition phase	15./18. July 1908
Medalist
gold	Emil Voigt ( GBR )
silver	Edward Owen ( GBR )
bronze	John Svanberg ( SWE )

The men's 5-mile run at the 1908 London Olympics was decided on July 18, 1908 at the White City Stadium . Three days earlier, there were six preliminary runs to determine the finalists.

It was the first individual competition over a long distance in the Olympic program. The route length was the equivalent of 8047 meters. This distance was held only once at the Olympic Games and from 1912 onwards it was replaced by the track races over 5000 and 10,000 meters that are still common today.

The British Emil Voigt won the Olympic gold medal, his compatriot Edward Owen won silver . The Swede John Svanberg came third.

Records

There was already an unofficial world record over this distance. Since the competition was part of the Olympic program for the first time, there was still no Olympic record .

World record	24: 33.4 min	Great Britain	Alfred Shrubb	London ( Great Britain ), May 12, 1904

The following records were set in this discipline at the 1908 Olympic Games:

OR	25: 46.2 min	Sweden	John Svanberg	1. Forward
OR	25: 11.2 min	Great Britain	Emil Voigt	final

Results

Prelim (July 15th)

The winners of the six preliminary heats - highlighted in light green - reached the final. In addition, the four fastest runners-up in the heats - highlighted in blue - made it to the finals.

1. Forward

space	athlete	country	Time (min)
1	John Svanberg	Sweden	25: 46.2 OR
2	Charles Hefferon	South Africa	26: 05.0
3	George Blake	Australasia	k. A.
	William Coales	Great Britain	DNF
	Gaston Ragueneau	France

Svanberg qualified with the fastest time of all heats without any problems, and Hefferons time was enough for the final. Blake was lapped, Coales gave up after more than four miles, Ragueneau already on the first lap.

2. Forward

space	athlete	country	Time (min)
1	Emil Voigt	Great Britain	26: 13.4
2	Frederick Bellars	United States	26: 49.0
3	Pericle Pagliani	Italy	26: 56.4
4th	Kjeld Nielsen	Denmark	27: 04.8
	Willem Wakker	Netherlands	DNF
	Nikolaos Kouloumberdas	Greece
	Edward Dahl	Sweden

3. Forward

space	athlete	country	Time (min)
1	Seth Landquist	Sweden	27: 00.2
2	Edward Carr	United States	27: 24.4
3	Julius Jørgensen	Denmark	28: 08.8
4th	Charles Hall	United States	28: 24.0
5	Paul Nettelbeck	Germany	28: 31.6
	Wilhelmus Braams	Netherlands	DNF

Since this was the slowest advance, only the winner made it to the final.

4. Forward

space	athlete	country	Time (min)
1	James Murphy	Great Britain	25: 59.2
2	Fred Meadows	Canada	26: 16.2
3	Georg Peterson	Sweden	26: 50.4
4th	Paul Lizandier	France	27: 10.8
	Joe Deakin	Great Britain	DNF
	John Tait	Canada
	Jacques Keyser	Netherlands

5. Forward

space	athlete	country	Time (min)
1	Arthur Robertson	Great Britain	26: 50.2
2	John Fitzgerald	Canada	26: 05.8
3	Samuel Stevenson	Great Britain	26: 17.0
	Axel Wiegandt	Sweden	DNF
	Joseph Lynch	Australasia
	Herbert Trube	United States

With a comparatively close result, the time of the third in several other races would have been enough to qualify for the final. Arthur Robertson had competed in the three-mile team competition less than three hours before this preliminary run.

In the literature from zur Megede given below , among the runners who gave up, the Dutch Arie Vosbergen is named instead of the American Herbert Trube.

6. Forward

space	athlete	country	Time (min)
1	Edward Owen	Great Britain	26: 12.0
2	William Galbraith	Canada	27: 23.2
3	Arnošt Nejedlý	Bohemia	28: 29.8
	Antal Lovas	Hungary	DNF

Owen won by more than a minute, the runner-up had no chance of the final because of his insufficient time.

Final (July 18)

space	athlete	country	Time (min)
1	Emil Voigt	Great Britain	25: 11.2 OR
2	Edward Owen	Great Britain	25: 24.0
3	John Svanberg	Sweden	25: 37.2
4th	Charles Hefferon	South Africa	25: 44.0
5	Arthur Robertson	Great Britain	26: 13.0
6th	Fred Meadows	Canada	26: 16.2
7th	John Fitzgerald	Canada	k. A.
8th	Frederick Bellars	United States
9	Seth Landquist	Sweden
	James Murphy	Great Britain	DNF

There were several changes at the top during the final run. After the first mile, Edward Owen was leading with an intermediate time of 4: 46.2 minutes. Then the South African Hefferon took the lead. It passed the 2-mile mark after 9: 54.2 minutes and the 3-mile mark after 15: 05.6 minutes. After four miles, John Svanberg was ahead with a time of 20: 19.2 minutes. Until then, the Brit Emil Voigt had kept tactically in the background, but sprinted forward 700 meters from the finish, overtook his competitors and finally won by over twelve seconds over his compatriot Edward Owen. The Swede John Svanberg, who had won silver in the marathon at the Athens Intermediate Games in 1906 and was actually a favorite, finished third. Fourth was the South African Charles Hefferon, who six days later won the silver medal on the marathon route.

• 

  The British Olympic Champion Emil Voigt

• 

  The Swedish Olympic third party John Svanberg - here in a photo from the 1920s

• 

  The South African Charles Hefferon took fourth place in the final and won silver in the marathon a few days later

• 

  Brit Arthur Robertson finished fifth in the Olympics

literature

• Volker Kluge , Olympic Summer Games - The Chronicle I, Berlin 1997 ( ISBN 3-328-00715-6 )
• Ekkehard zur Megede , The history of Olympic athletics, Volume 1: 1896–1936, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 2nd edition 1970

Web links

• Sports-Reference, Athletics at the 1908 London Summer Games: Men's 5 mile , accessed August 27, 2018
• Olympic Games London 1908, Athletics, 5 miles 8047m men , IOC page on athletics at the 1908 Olympic Games at olympic.org, English, accessed August 27, 2018

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ekkehard zur Megede , The History of Olympic Athletics, Volume 1: 1896-1936, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 2nd edition 1970, p. 38