1960 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 800 m (women)

sport	athletics
discipline	800 meter run
gender	Women
Attendees	27 athletes from 15 countries
Competition location	Stadio Olimpico
Competition phase	September 6, 1960 (preliminary) September 7, 1960 (final)
Medalists Lyudmila Shevtsova ( URS )   Brenda Jones ( AUS )   Ursula Donath ( GER )

The women's 800-meter run at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome was held on September 6th and 7th, 1960 in the Stadio Olimpico . 27 athletes took part. The discipline was re-included in the Olympic program after a 32-year break.

Olympic champion was Lyudmila Shevtsova from the Soviet Union, who set her own world record . She won ahead of the Australian Brenda Jones and the German Ursula Donath .

Runners from Austria and Switzerland did not take part. In addition to Donath, two other Germans competed and both made it to the final. Veronika Kummerfeldt was fourth, Antje Gleichfeld was fifth.

Existing records

World record	2: 04.3 min	Lyudmila Shevtsova ( Soviet Union )	Moscow , Soviet Union (now Russia )	3rd July 1960
Olympic record	2: 16.8 min	Lina Radke ( German Empire )	Final from Amsterdam , Netherlands	August 2, 1928

1928 controversy

After the final race in Amsterdam , press reports drew attention to this race. There it was stated that five of the finalists had given up, five more had collapsed and the last had passed out in the locker room. As a result, after a vote by the IAAF, this discipline was removed from the Olympic program.

Lynne Emery of California Polytechnic State University revealed in her investigation that the news reports were false. All runners reached the goal, some of them undercut the current world record . Emery concluded that the removal of this discipline from the Olympic program was unjustified.

Conducting the competition

The runners competed in four preliminary runs on September 6th. The two best athletes in each run and an additional fastest qualified for the final on September 7th.

Note: The directly qualified athletes are highlighted in light blue, the fastest athletes are highlighted in light green.

Time schedule

September 6, 3:15 p.m .: Preliminaries
September 7, 4:45 p.m .: Final

Prelims

Date: September 6, 1960, from 3:15 p.m.

Forward 1

space	Surname	nation	Official time hand-stopped	Unofficial time electronically	annotation
1	Antje Gleichfeld	Germany	2: 10.9 min	2: 11.05 min	OR
2	Brenda Jones	Australia	2: 11.0 min	2: 11.14 min
3	Sinaida Matistovich	Soviet Union	2: 11.4 min	2: 11.57 min
4th	Maryvonne Dupureur	France	2: 12.3 min	2: 12.42 min
5	Diane Charles	Great Britain	2: 14.1 min	2: 14.24 min
6th	Zofia Walasek	Poland	2: 16.3 min	2: 16.44 min
7th	Lee Hak-yes	South Korea	2: 28.4 min	k. A.

Forward 2

space	Surname	nation	Official time hand-stopped	Unofficial time electronically	annotation
1	Ursula Donath	Germany	2: 07.8 min	2: 07.92 min	OR
2	Beata Żbikowska	Poland	2: 09.5 min	2: 09.57 min
3	Florica Grecescu	Romania	2: 10.0 min	2: 10.10 min
4th	Olga Kazi	Hungary	2: 10.9 min	2: 11.07 min
5	Gilda Jannaccone	Italy	2: 13.6 min	2: 13.72 min
6th	Phyllis Perkins	Great Britain	2: 15.3 min	2: 15.41 min
DSQ	Pat Daniels	United States

Forward 3

Gerda Kraan (NED) retired in the preliminary run.

space	Surname	nation	Official time hand-stopped	Unofficial time electronically	annotation
1	Lyudmila Shevtsova	Soviet Union	2: 09.2 min	2: 09.31 min
2	Gizella Csóka	Hungary	2: 09.6 min	2: 09.77 min
3	Krystyna Nowakowska	Poland	2: 09.7 min	2: 09.81 min
4th	Eleanor Haslam	Canada	2: 10.0 min	2: 10.17 min
5	Bedřiška Kulhavá	Czechoslovakia	2: 10.1 min	2: 10.23 min
6th	Gerda Kraan	Netherlands	2: 10.6 min	2: 10.71 min
7th	Nicole Goullieux	France	2: 13.4 min	2: 13.53 min

Forward 4

space	Surname	nation	Official time hand-stopped	Unofficial time electronically	annotation
1	Dixie Willis	Australia	2: 05.9 min	2: 06.03 min	OR
2	Joy Jordan	Great Britain	2: 07.2 min	2: 07.29 min
3	Veronika Kummerfeldt	Germany	2: 07.2 min	2: 07.34 min
4th	Ekaterina Parlyuk	Soviet Union	2: 07.5 min	2: 07.71 min
5	Ine ter Laak-Spijk	Netherlands	2: 10.2 min	2: 10.36 min
6th	Gül Çiray	Turkey	2: 11.4 min	2: 11.55 min

final

The finish of the finals: Olympic victory for Lyudmila Schewzowa (No. 163), silver for Brenda Jones (No. 6), in the background Ursula Donath, who won bronze

space	Surname	nation	Official time hand-stopped	Unofficial time electronically	annotation
1	Lyudmila Shevtsova	Soviet Union	2: 04.3 min	2: 04.50 min	WRe / OR
2	Brenda Jones	Australia	2: 04.4 min	2: 04.58 min
3	Ursula Donath	Germany	2: 05.6 min	2: 05.73 min
4th	Veronika Kummerfeldt	Germany	2: 05.9 min	2: 06.07 min
5	Antje Gleichfeld	Germany	2: 06.5 min	2: 06.63 min
6th	Joy Jordan	Great Britain	2: 07.8 min	2: 07.95 min
7th	Gizella Csóka	Hungary	2: 08.0 min	2: 08.11 min
8th	Beata Żbikowska	Poland	2: 11.8 min	2: 11.91 min
9	Dixie Willis	Australia	k. A.

Date: September 7, 1960, 4:45 p.m.

Apart from the European Athletics Championships , where the women's 800-meter run had been part of the program again since 1954 , it was the first international comparison on this route at a major event since 1928 . The Soviet runner Lyudmila Schewzowa was the favorite after her world record from the previous year. As expected , the existing Olympic record was significantly undercut in the preliminaries , most recently by the Australian Dixie Willis, who brought herself up for discussion as a medal candidate.

After the start, Antje Gleichfeld took the lead and slowed down the pace for her strong German colleagues Ursula Donath and Veronika Kummerfeldt. But Schewzowa did not allow this tactic, went to the front after 200 meters and pushed hard. The Australian Dixie Willis took part in the management work, the pace was now so fast that only the two Germans Donath and Gleichfeld and the Australian Brenda Jones could keep up. In the target curve, Donath took the initiative and started to overtake. Willis inside, Schewzowa in the middle and Donath outside sprinted side by side for a short time. Then Donath fell back a little. Shevtsova had the greatest reserves. Willis, at the end of her strength, stepped onto the lane boundary just before the end of the curve and stumbled. She returned to the track and still ran to the finish, but ended up in ninth and last place. There was no longer any timekeeping for them. With a strong final sprint, Brenda Jones pulled past Donath on the home straight and won the silver medal just barely beaten by Olympic champion Lyudmila Shevtsova. Ursula Donath was third ahead of Veronika Kummerfeldt and Antje Gleichfeld. The gold medalist set her own world record .

literature

• Ekkehard zur Megede , The History of Olympic Athletics, Volume 2: 1948–1968, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 1st edition 1969, p. 223f

Videos

• Rome Olympic Games 1960 Womens 800m , published November 20, 2010 on youtube.com, accessed October 22, 2017

Web links

• SportsReference 800m , accessed October 22, 2017
• Official report pp. 189–191, engl. (PDF), accessed on October 22, 2017

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Berlin 2009, page 641 ( Memento from June 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Lynne Emery: An Examination of the 1928 Olympic 800 meter race for women, from "Proceedings of the North American Society for Sport" (1982), page 30 ( Memento of the original from September 23, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed October 22, 2017 
3. ↑ Official Report of the 1960 Olympic Games , p. 64 (English) at library.la84.org (PDF), accessed on October 22, 2017
4. ↑ Official Report of the 1960 Olympic Games , p. 190 (English) at library.la84.org (PDF), accessed on October 22, 2017
5. ^ Official Report of the 1960 Olympic Games , p. 191 at library.la84.org (PDF), accessed on October 22, 2017
6. ^ Ekkehard zur Megede , The History of Olympic Athletics, Volume 2: 1948–1968, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 1st edition 1969, p. 223