1932 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 80 m hurdles (women)

sport	athletics
discipline	80 meter hurdles
gender	Women
Attendees	9 athletes from 6 countries
Competition location	Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
Competition phase	August 3, 1932 (preliminary) August 4, 1932 (final)
Medalists Mildred Didrikson ( USA )   Evelyne Hall ( USA )   Marjorie Clark ( RSA )

The women's 80-meter hurdles at the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles was held on August 3 and 4, 1932 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum . Only nine athletes took part in the Olympic premiere of this discipline. Starting pistols , electronic timekeeping and target photos were used for the first time at the Olympic Games , but electronic timekeeping was only used unofficially.

The American Mildred Didrikson was Olympic champion ahead of her compatriot Evelyne Hall . The South African Marjorie Clark won the bronze medal.

Existing records

• World record : 11.8 s - Marjorie Clark ( South African Union ), Pietermaritzburg , May 2, 1932 / Roxanne Atkins ( Canada ), Hamilton , June 6, 1932 / Anne Vrana-O'Brien ( USA ), Philadelphia , June 18, 1932
• The discipline was on the Olympic program for the first time. That is why there was no Olympic record yet .

Conducting the competition

On August 3rd, the runners competed in two preliminary runs. The three best athletes in each case qualified for the final on August 4th.

Note: The qualified athletes are highlighted in light blue.

Prelims

Date: August 3, 1932

Forward 1

Simone Schaller was fourth in the final

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Mildred Didrikson	United States	11.8 s
2	Simone Schaller	United States	11.8 s
3	Marjorie Clark	South African Union	11.9 s
4th	Elizabeth Taylor	Canada	12.0 s
DNF	Michi Nakanishi	Japan

Forward 2

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Evelyne Hall	United States	12.0 s
2	Violet Webb	Great Britain	12.1 s
3	Alda Wilson	Canada	12.1 s
4th	Felicja Schabińska	Poland	12.8 s

final

space	Surname	nation	height	annotation
1	Mildred Didrikson	United States	11.7 s	WR
2	Evelyne Hall	United States	11.7 s	WR
3	Marjorie Clark	South African Union	11.8 s
4th	Simone Schaller	United States	11.8 s
5	Violet Webb	Great Britain	11.9 s
6th	Alda Wilson	Canada	12.0 s

Date: August 4, 1932

In this competition, Mildred Didrikson showed her special class for the second time after throwing the javelin . The outcome was wafer-thin after Didrikson was clearly ahead until shortly before the finish. But she hit the last hurdle and her compatriot Evelyne Hall came very close to her again. But Didrikson was just before Hall in the finish, both improved the existing world record by a tenth of a second. The bronze medal went to the South African Marjorie Clark, who with 11.8 seconds reached exactly the time with which she had previously held the world record. Simone Schaller also came in fourth with 11.8 seconds.

Until her death in 1993, Evelyne Hall insisted that she was the winner. But film recordings of the race and photos of the finish in the official report refute this statement.

literature

• Ekkehard zur Megede , The History of Olympic Athletics, Volume 1: 1896-1936, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 2nd edition 1970, pp. 248f

Web links

• SportsReference 80m hurdles , accessed September 18, 2017
• Official report pp. 468-470, engl. (PDF), accessed on September 18, 2017
• Babe Didrikson at Los Angeles 1932, Epic Olympic Moments , published December 19, 2015 on youtube.com, accessed September 18, 2017

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ekkehard zur Megede , The History of Olympic Athletics, Volume 1: 1896–1936, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 2nd edition 1970, p. 249
2. ↑ SportsReference (Eng.)