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)
Competition phase	November 24, 1956
Medalist Norman Read ( NZL )   Yevgeny Maskinskov ( URS )   John Ljunggren ( SWE )

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

The Swede John Ljunggren, winner of 1948 , won the bronze medal.

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

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Berlin 2009, page 566 ( Memento from June 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
2. ^ Official report p. 324, engl. (PDF), accessed on October 5, 2017
3. ^ Official report p. 284, engl. (PDF), accessed on October 5, 2017
4. ↑ Official report p. 275, engl. (PDF), accessed on October 5, 2017
5. ^ Official report p. 323, engl. (PDF), accessed on October 5, 2017