1908 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 800 m (men)

sport	athletics
discipline	800 meter run
gender	Men
place	White City Stadium
Attendees	38 or 39 athletes from 11 countries
Competition phase	20./21. July 1908
Medalist
gold	Melvin Sheppard ( USA )
silver	Emilio Lunghi ( ITA )
bronze	Hanns Braun ( GER )

The 800-meter race of the men at the 1908 Olympic Games in London was on July 21, 1908 in White City Stadium decided. The day before, the finalists were determined in eight preliminary runs.

The American Melvin Sheppard was Olympic champion ahead of the Italian Emilio Lunghi . The bronze medal was won by the German Hanns Braun .

Records

The existing world record was still unofficial at the time and was set in a race over 880  yards , which corresponds to 804.672 meters.

World record	1: 53.4 min	United States	Charles Kilpatrick	New York ( USA ), September 21, 1895
Olympic record	1: 56.0 min	United States	James Lightbody	St. Louis Finale ( USA ), September 1, 1904

The following records were broken or set at these Olympic Games over 800 meters :

WR

1: 52.8 min

United States

Melvin Sheppard

Final on July 21, 1908

Results

Prelim (July 20th)

The respective race winners from the eight preliminary runs qualified for the final. The US delegation successfully protested that two of their strongest runners - Mel Sheppard and John Halstead - had already met in the run-up.

The times given in brackets come from the literature by zur Megede mentioned below and are probably estimated.

In the list of participants is still Joseph Lynch reported from Australasia. In Sports-Reference , however, it is not mentioned in any lead. In the literature by Kluge mentioned below , this runner is listed in fifth place in the fourth preliminary run, although the author's list of results is apparently a bit flawed. B. leads the Canadian Parkes in two races. However, Joseph Lynch is also mentioned in zur Megede with identical values ​​as in Kluge .

1. Forward

space	athlete	country	Time (min)
1	Ödön Bodor	Hungary	1: 58.6
2	George Butterfield	Great Britain	(1: 58.9)
3	Evert Bjorn	Sweden	k. A.
4th	James Lightbody	United States
	Murray Ashford	Great Britain	DNF
	Henk van der Wal	Netherlands

The run ended with a narrow two- yard lead for Bodor.

2. Forward

space	athlete	country	Time (min)
1	Melvin Sheppard	United States	1: 58.0
2	James Lintott	Great Britain	(1: 58.8)
3	Irving Parkes	Canada	k. A.

Sheppard won his run by four yards.

3. Forward

space	athlete	country	Time (min)
1	John Halstead	United States	2: 01.4
2	John Lee	Great Britain	(2: 01.7)
3	George Morphy	Great Britain	k. A.
4th	József Nagy	Hungary

Halstead won by two yards.

4. Forward

space	athlete	country	Time (min)
1	Emilio Lunghi	Italy	1: 57.2
2	Harry Coe	United States	(1: 58.0)
3	Lloyd Jones	United States	k. A.
	Stylianos Dimitriou	Greece	DNF
	Larry Manogue	Great Britain

Lunghi was two yards ahead of Coe at the finish.

For this race, zur Megede has two other names for the two runners who did not finish the race: Joseph Lynch from Australasia and English from Great Britain .

5. Forward

space	athlete	country	Time (min)
1	Clarke Beard	United States	1: 59.8
2	Arthur Astley	Great Britain	(1; 59.8)
3	Donald Buddo	Canada	k. A.
4th	Oskar Quarg	Germany
	Charles M. French	United States	DNF
	Edward Dahl	Sweden

Beard won by a yard. This does not seem to be correct at first due to the simultaneity stated at the Megede for the first and second placed. But at that time the times were rounded to just tenths of a second, so this result could still be correct.

6. Forward

space	athlete	country	Time (min)
1	Theodore Just	Great Britain	1: 57.8
2	Andreas Breynk	Germany	(2: 06.0)
	Aria Vosbergen	Netherlands	DNF
	Gosta Danielson	Sweden

Just won by a large margin of 50 yards.

7. Forward

space	athlete	country	Time (min)
1	Hanns Braun	Germany	1: 58.0
2	Joseph Bromilov	United States	(1: 58.3)
3	Harold Holding	Great Britain	k. A.
	Horace Ramey	United States	DNF
	Fredrik Svanström	Finland
	Bram Evers	Netherlands

Braun won by a yard.

8. Forward

space	athlete	country	Time (min)
1	Ivo Fairbairn-Crawford	Great Britain	1: 57.8
2	Kristian Hellström	Sweden	2: 00.0
3	Frank Sheehan	United States	k. A.
	Harvey Sutton	Australasia	DNF

The winner clearly won by a margin of 15 yards.

In contrast to the list at zur Megede and Kluge , Sports-Reference does not list Sutton from Australasia as a retired runner. There it ranks third ahead of Sheehan.

Final (July 21)

space	athlete	country	Time (min)
1	Melvin Sheppard	United States	1: 52.8 WR
2	Emilio Lunghi	Italy	1: 54.2
3	Hanns Braun	Germany	1: 55.2
4th	Ödön Bodor	Hungary	1: 55.4
5	Theodore Just	Great Britain	1: 56.4
6th	John Halstead	United States	k. A.
	Ivo Fairbairn-Crawford	Great Britain	DNF
	Clarke Beard	United States

The British Ivo Fairbairn-Crawford led the final. The passage time at 400 m was exceptionally fast with 53.0 s and so he had exhausted himself so much that he had to give up the race. Sheppard took the lead, shook off his pursuers and steadily increased his lead. He won the gold medal with a new world record . In the fight for third place, Hanns Braun intercepted Theodore Just, who was losing a lot, but had to fend off the final attack by Ödön Bodor.

The times in places 2 to 5 are estimated based on the gap between the runners and the winner.

Melvin Sheppard won the second gold medal here after his Olympic victory over 1500 meters a week earlier. A third should follow in the first ever Olympic relay.

• 

  Three-time Olympic champion Melvin Sheppard, USA

• 

  The Olympic runner-up Emilio Lunghi from Italy

• 

  The Olympic third Hanns Braun - here as second in the 400 meter final in 1912 - from Germany

• 

  The Swede Kristian Hellström was eliminated as second in his prelim

• 

  The US-American Harry Coe - here as a member of the Michigan Four-Mile Relay Team, second from right - failed in his preliminary run to the later silver medalist Emilio Lunghi

• 

  The US triple Olympic gold medalist from 1904 , James Lightbody, had no chance in his preliminary run and was eliminated

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 800 meters , English, accessed August 26, 2018
• Olympic Games London 1908, Athletics, 800m men , IOC page on athletics at the 1908 Olympic Games at olympic.org, English, accessed 26 August 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. 76