The runners competed in the heats on July 30th. A total of twelve runs were completed. The two best runners each qualified for the quarter-finals on the same day that the three best runners reached the semifinals. The two semi-finals, from which the first three starters progressed, and the final were held on July 31st.
Note: The qualified athletes are highlighted in light blue.
Prelims
July 30, 1948, 3 p.m.
Not all times have been recorded.
Muhammad Sharif Butt from Pakistan and Charles Thompson from Guyana (then British Guiana) were the first athletes to take part in the Olympic Games for their respective countries.
Finish of the final (from left to right): Dillard (USA), Bailey (GBR), McCorquodale (GBR), LaBeach (PAN), Ewell (USA). Not in the picture: Patton (USA)
Three Americans (Harrison Dillard, Barney Ewell and Melvin Patton) competed in the final against two British (Emmanuel McDonald Bailey, Alastair McCorquodale) and Lloyd LaBeach from Panama. Patton, Ewell and LaBeach were favorites. Patton got off to a bad start and was unable to intervene at the front of the race. At the finish, Ewell cheered believing he was an Olympic champion. He had only paid attention to his supposed main opponents Patton and LaBeach who came in behind him. When he saw on the target photo that Dillard was lying in front of him, he was very disappointed. This race outcome was very surprising, Harrison Dillard was actually the world's leading 110-meter hurdler , but hit a hurdle in his special discipline at the US Olympic eliminations and was eliminated. Over 100 meters he was then able to qualify for London together with Patton and Ewell .
The decision about third place was made by photo of the finish in favor of LaBeach.
The timekeepers were not up to their task in this race. That is why the times were simply left out in many publications. The times that result from the unofficially determined electronic times are therefore noted in this table.
Dillard won the eighth gold medal for the USA in the eleventh Olympic final.
Lloyd LaBeach, the first Panama athlete to compete in the Olympics, was also his country's first medalist.
literature
Ekkehard zur Megede , The History of Olympic Athletics, Volume 2: 1948–1968, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 1st edition 1969, pp. 13–15