1956 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 50 km walk (men)
sport | athletics | ||||||||
discipline | 50 km walk | ||||||||
gender | Men | ||||||||
Attendees | 21 athletes from 10 countries | ||||||||
Competition location |
Melbourne Cricket Ground (start and finish) |
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Competition phase | November 24, 1956 | ||||||||
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The men's 50 km walk at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne was held on November 24, 1956. 21 athletes took part, 13 of which made it to the finish. Start and finish was the Melbourne Cricket Ground .
Olympic champion was the New Zealander Norman Read . He won ahead of Yevgeny Maskinskow from the Soviet Union and the Swede John Ljunggren .
Swiss, Austrian and German walkers did not take part.
Existing records
World best | 4:05:13 h | Grigory Klimov Soviet Union | Moscow , Soviet Union | August 10, 1956 |
Olympic record | 4: 28: 07.8 h | Giuseppe Dordoni Italy | Helsinki , Finland | July 21, 1952 |
Note: World records are not set in street walking because of the different track conditions.
Routing
After two and a half laps on the cinder track, the route led out of the stadium onto Brunton Avenue . Then it went right into the Punt Road , on which the railway line was crossed directly at the station in the Richmond district . Immediately after that, the path turned right onto Swan Street . After crossing the Yarra River , the route led via Linlithgow Avenue through the northern part of the Royal Botanic Gardens , from there on to St. Kilda Road in a south-westerly direction. Then the route swung left west onto Dandenong Road . In the Malvern district, we continued southwest on Normanby Road . At the height of the racecourse in Caulfield the railway line was crossed again on Queens Avenue and the path then immediately turned right again into Dandenong Road , further in a south-westerly direction past Oakleigh. It went steadily uphill, past Clayton, until the turning point was reached in Springvale and the route led back on the same route back to the stadium.
Race and result
space | Surname | nation | time | annotation |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Norman Read | New Zealand | 4:30: 42.8 h | |
2 | Yevgeny Maskinskov | Soviet Union | 4: 32: 57.0 h | |
3 | John Ljunggren | Sweden | 4: 35: 02.0 h | |
4th | Abdon Pamich | Italy | 4: 39: 00,0 h | |
5 | Antal Róka | Hungary | 4: 50: 09.0 h | |
6th | Ray Smith | Australia | 4: 56: 08.0 h | |
7th | Adolf Weinacker | United States | 5:00: 16.0 h | |
8th | Albert Johnson | Great Britain | 5:02: 19.0 h | |
9 | Eric Hall | Great Britain | 5: 03: 59.0 h | |
10 | Ion Barbu | Romania | 5:08:33.6 h | |
11 | Elliott Denman | United States | 5: 12: 14.0 h | |
12 | Leo Sjogren | United States | 5: 12: 34.0 h | |
13 | Ronald Crawford | Australia | 5: 22: 36.0 h | |
DSQ | Ted Allsopp | Australia | ||
Mikhail Lavrov | Soviet Union | |||
DNF | Josef Doležal | Czechoslovakia | ||
Grigory Klimov | Soviet Union | |||
Dumitru Paraschivescu | Romania | |||
Milan Skřont | Czechoslovakia | |||
János Somogyi | Hungary | |||
Don Thompson | Great Britain |
Date: November 24, 1956, 1:30 p.m.
After two kilometers, the New Zealander Norman Read took the lead, but was soon overtaken by the Soviet walker Yevgeny Maskinskow, who increased the pace. Now a top group of nine formed, which gradually fell apart from kilometer ten onwards. Five kilometers further, Maskinskow was alone ahead, almost twenty seconds behind there was a chasing group consisting of fellow favorite Josef Doležal, 1954 European champion over the 10 km distance, Abdon Pamich and Read. At twenty kilometers, Maskinskow was now in front of Mikhail Lavrov by almost two minutes and Pamich, Doležal and Read closely behind them. At the turning point, Read had overtaken the Italian Pamich. At 35 km Lavrov was disqualified, Doležal fell further and further and gave up the race. Read, now in second position, was 2:18 minutes behind Maskinskow, but reduced the gap to just 47 seconds by forty kilometers. Here Grigori Klimow had worked his way up to third place, but he gave up the race over the next few kilometers. After 40 km Read overtook the Soviet athlete and was more than a minute ahead at 45 km. The New Zealander kept the pace up to the stadium and went for the gold medal. Maskinskow was second, 2:15 minutes behind. The Swede John Ljunggren, winner in 1948 , had fought his way up to bronze in the end.
In total, only six walkers crossed the finish line below the five-hour mark. Giuseppe Dordoni's Olympic record was not reached here in Melbourne .
Split times:
- 5 km: Maskinskow 25:48 / Doležal 25:49 / Ljunggren 25:49
- 10 km: Maskinskow 51:21 / Doležal 51:22 / Ljunggren 51:23
- 15 km: Maskinskow 1:16:53 / Doležal 1:17:11 / Pamich 1:17:12
- 20 km: Maskinskow 1:42:16 / Lavrov 1:44:05 / Pamich 1:44:07
- 25 km: Maskinskow 2:08:38 / Lavrov 2:10:56 / Read 2:11:06
- 30 km: Maskinskow 2:35:50 / Lavrov 2:37:02 / Read 2:38:19
- 35 km: Maskinskow 3:03:07 / Read 3:05:24 / Klimow 3:08:55
- 40 km: Maskinskow 3:32:09 / Read 3:32:56 / Klimow 3:39:07
- 45 km: Read 4:01:00 / Maskinskow 4:02:22 / Ljunggren 4:07:38
literature
- Ekkehard zur Megede , The History of Olympic Athletics, Volume 2: 1948–1968, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 1st edition 1969, p. 138
Web links
- SportsReference 50km Walk , accessed October 5, 2017
- Official report pp. 322-325, engl. (PDF), accessed on October 5, 2017
- Norman Read wins 50km walk in Melbourne, 1956 , published August 4, 2015 on youtube.com, accessed October 5, 2017
Individual evidence
- ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Berlin 2009, page 566 ( Memento from June 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Official report p. 324, engl. (PDF), accessed on October 5, 2017
- ^ Official report p. 284, engl. (PDF), accessed on October 5, 2017
- ↑ Official report p. 275, engl. (PDF), accessed on October 5, 2017
- ^ Official report p. 323, engl. (PDF), accessed on October 5, 2017