1920 Summer Olympics / Athletics - Marathon (Men)
sport | athletics | ||||||||
discipline | Marathon run | ||||||||
gender | Men | ||||||||
Attendees | 48 athletes from 17 countries | ||||||||
Competition location |
Olympic Stadium Antwerp (start and finish) |
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Competition phase | 22nd August 1920 | ||||||||
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The men's marathon at the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp was held on August 22, 1920. 48 athletes took part. The route ran for a total of 42,750 km.
The Olympic champion was Hannes Kolehmainen from Finland, ahead of Jüri Lossmann from Estonia and Valerio Arri from Italy .
Athletes from Switzerland were not at the start. Germany's and Austria's athletes were banned from participating in these games.
Existing records
- World best time: 2:36:07 h - Alexis Ahlgren ( SWE ), London , May 31, 1913 - Official world records were not set in this discipline due to the different track conditions.
- Olympic record : 2:36: 54.8 h ( route length 40.2 km ) - Ken McArthur ( ZAF ), Stockholm , July 14, 1912
Conducting the competition
The race started on August 22nd at 4 p.m. in the Antwerp Olympic Stadium . After one and a half laps of the stadium, the runners left the arena and, after completing the course, returned to where they had to run another one and a half laps.
competition
Date: August 22, 1920
When the runners left the stadium, the South African Christopher Gitsham - Olympic runner-up in 1912 - and the Belgian August Broos led the field. After eight kilometers, Kolehmainen, Gitsham, Broos and Ettore Blasi formed a top group of four. At the turning point, Gitsham and Kolehmainen were alone in front, with Broos and Blasi following 48 seconds behind. Jüri Lossmann and Juho Tuomikoski were a little further back. Gitsham was able to follow Kolehmainen for a long time, but then had to retire injured at 37 km. In the further course the outsider Lossmann approached from behind, whose best times over 5000 and 10,000 meters were about four minutes slower than Kolehmainens. Lossmann caught up with Kolehmainen and the two ran a few kilometers together. In the end, the Finn was only able to prevail with a margin of 12.8 seconds. The Italian Valerio Arri came in third place just under four minutes behind.
Although the distance was 555 meters longer than the distance prescribed for the marathon, the time achieved was a world record - world records are not held in the marathon - and at the same time an Olympic record . Lossmann also remained below the previous best time.
In this race, the first great Finnish long-distance runner, Hannes Kolehmainen, crowned his career. After his three gold medals from Stockholm over 5000 meters, 10000 meters and cross-country running due to the war-related cancellation of the Olympic Games planned for 1916 in Berlin, the chance for even more medals was taken away. He won the fourth gold medal of his career here.
Kolehmainen's gold medal was the first ever Finnish medal in a marathon. Lossmann and Arri also won the first precious metal in the marathon for their countries Estonia and Italy.
literature
- Ekkehard zur Megede , The History of Olympic Athletics, Volume 1: 1896-1936, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 2nd edition 1970, pp. 140f
Web links
- SportsReference Marathon ,
- Official report French (PDF),
Video
- Hannes Kolehmainen - Marathon - Antwerp Olympics 1920 , published on February 19, 2015 on youtube.com, accessed on August 30, 2017
Individual evidence
- ^ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Berlin 2009 Page 565 ( Memento from June 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Official report, page 111 (French) ( Memento of October 7, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Description at SportsReference (Engl.)