1964 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 50 km walk (men)

sport	athletics
discipline	50 km walk
gender	Men
Attendees	34 athletes from 19 countries
Competition location	Tokyo City Motorway Tokyo Olympic Stadium (start and finish)
Competition phase	October 18, 1964
Medalist Abdon Pamich ( ITA )   Paul Nihill ( GBR )   Ingvar Pettersson ( SWE )

Kurt Sakowski (GER) finished eighth

The men's 50 km walk at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo was held on October 18, 1964. The start and finish was the Tokyo Olympic Stadium . 34 athletes took part, 31 of which made it to the finish.

Olympic champion was the Italian Abdon Pamich . He won ahead of the British Paul Nihill and the Swede Ingvar Pettersson .

The all-German team sent three walkers, all from the GDR , into the race, all of whom were able to place in the top ten. Burkhard Leuschke reached fourth place, Christoph Höhne sixth and Kurt Sakowski eighth. The Swiss Erwin Stütz took 23rd place. Walkers from Austria and Liechtenstein did not take part.

Existing records

World best	Mikhail Lavrov ( Soviet Union )	4:00:50 h	Kazan , Soviet Union (now Russia )	5th September 1961
Olympic record	Don Thompson ( Great Britain )	4:25:30 h	50km walk in Rome , Italy	September 7, 1960

World records are not set in street walking because of the different track conditions.

Routing

The race started in the Olympic Stadium . After two laps, the route led out of the stadium in a north-westerly direction into the Shinjuku district . On the Metropolitan Expressway it went west through the districts Hatagaya, Sasazuka, Izumi, Karasuyama and Shinkawa. The route continued through the city of Chofu . The turning point was in Fuchū , from which it went back the same way to the stadium where the goal was.

Race course

Date: October 18, 1964, 12:20 p.m.

The favorite was Abdon Pamich from Italy, Olympic gold medalist from 1956 , Olympic knight from 1960 and European champion from 1962 .

On the first part of the route, the Soviet walker Gennadij Agapov worked out a lead of more than 40 seconds, his opponents held back and did not keep up with his high pace. After kilometer 15, the Soviet walker slacked off more and more and was twelfth in the end. Pamich now took the lead, but walked very controlled without exerting himself too much. At kilometer 20, the German Christoph Höhne had worked his way up to second place around 15 seconds behind Pamich, while the Briton Paul Nihill and still Agapow were five seconds behind. After another five kilometers, Nihill and Höhne caught up with Pamich, and a group of three had formed. But Höhne had taken over something during his race to catch up and had to let go. This situation did not change until kilometer 40, but the gap between Pamich and Nihill and Höhne gradually increased. Then the Brit could no longer follow the Italian and there was a gap between the two, which grew to 19 seconds until the finish. Abdon Pamich became Olympic champion in a new Olympic record time ahead of Paul Nihill. Behind the two there was an exciting battle for the bronze medal. Burkhard Leuschke, who had meanwhile passed his weakening compatriot Höhne, was in third place five kilometers from the finish. But from behind came the Swede Ingvar Pettersson, who had organized the competition very well. He, too, was now in front of Höhne and only a few seconds behind Leuschke. With a little more than three minutes behind Pamich, Ingvar Pettersson finally reached the finish as bronze medalist. Leuschke lost more than a minute to the Swede and was fourth in front of the Australian Bob Gardiner and Christoph Höhne, who should still have his greatest success as Olympic champion in Mexico City ahead of him.

John Ljunggren took part in the Olympic Games for the fifth time. At the age of 45, he was not only by far the oldest participant in the field, he was also the oldest athlete to take part in Tokyo . In total he started five times over 50 km and three times over 20 km . His greatest success was the Olympic victory over the long distance in London in 1948 . There was also a silver medal in Rome in 1960 and a bronze medal in Melbourne in 1956 .

Overview: split times
Intermediate mark	Meanwhile	Leading	5 km time
5 km	24:12 min	Gennady Agapov	24:12 min
10 km	47:31 min	Gennady Agapov	23:19 min
15 km	1:11:52 h	Gennady Agapov	24:19 min
20 km	1:37:33 h	Abdon Pamich	25:00 min
25 km	2:03:09 h	Abdon Pamich, Paul Nihill, Christoph Höhne	25:36 min
30 km	2:27:56 h	Abdon Pamich, Paul Nihill	24:47 min
35 km	2:53:30 h	Abdon Pamich, Paul Nihill	25:34 min
40 km	3:19:16 h	Abdon Pamich	25:46 min
45 km	3:45:25 h	Abdon Pamich	26:09 min
50 km	4:11:12 h	Abdon Pamich	25:47 min

Bottom line

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Abdon Pamich	Italy	4: 11: 12.4 h	OR
2	Paul Nihill	Great Britain	4: 11: 31.2 h
3	Ingvar Pettersson	Sweden	4: 14: 17.4 h
4th	Burkhard Leuschke	Germany	4: 15: 26.8 h
5	Bob Gardiner	Australia	4: 17: 06.8 h
6th	Christoph Höhne	Germany	4: 17: 41.6 h
7th	Anatoly Wedjakov	Soviet Union	4: 19: 55.8 h
8th	Kurt Sakowski	Germany	4: 20: 31.0 h
9	Charles Sowa	Luxembourg	4: 20: 37.2 h
10	Don Thompson	Great Britain	4: 22: 39.4 h
11	Ronald Crawford	Australia	4: 24: 19.6 h
12	Gennady Agapov	Soviet Union	4: 24: 34.0 h
13	Ray Middleton	Great Britain	4: 25: 49.2 h
14th	Alex Oakley	Canada	4: 27: 24.6 hours
15th	Henri Delerue	France	4: 27: 47.6 h
16	John Ljunggren	Sweden	4: 29: 09.2 h
17th	Ted Allsopp	Australia	4: 31: 07.8 h
18th	Yevgeny Ljungin	Soviet Union	4: 32: 01.6 h
19th	István Havasi	Hungary	4: 34: 14.0 h
20th	Alexander Bílek	Czechoslovakia	4: 34: 54.2 h
21st	Chris McCarthy	United States	4: 35: 41.6 h
22nd	Tadamasa Ejiri	Japan	4: 37: 31.8 h
23	Erwin Stütz	Switzerland	4: 40: 45.0 h
24	Roy Syversson	Sweden	4: 41: 47.6 h
25th	Kazuo Sato	Japan	4: 43: 01.0 h
26th	Bruce MacDonald	United States	4: 45: 10.4 h
27	Sumio Miwa	Japan	4: 52: 00.6 h
28	Ilie Popa	Romania	4: 57: 40.8 h
29	Mike Brodie	United States	4: 57: 41.0 h
30th	Chedli El-Marghni	Tunisia	4: 59: 13.0 h
31	So Kam Tong	Hong Kong	5:07:53.2 h
DNF	Maung Rajan	Burma
DSQ	Naceur Ben Messaoud	Tunisia
	Mieczysław Rutyna	Poland
DNS	István Göri	Hungary
	Antal Kiss	Hungary
	Kim Tai Koo	North Korea
	Pak Tai Keun	North Korea
	Emil Dragan	Romania

literature

• Ekkehard zur Megede , The History of Olympic Athletics, Volume 2: 1948–1968, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 1st edition 1969, p. 271

Video

• Tokyo Olympiad - Racewalking 50 km , published June 8, 2008 on youtube.com, accessed October 27, 2017

Web links

• SportsReference 50km Walk , accessed October 27, 2017
• Official report of the Olympic Games 1964 p. 78f engl. (PDF), accessed on October 27, 2017

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Berlin 2009 Page 566 (Engl.) ( Memento of 29 June 2011 at the Internet Archive ), accessed on 27 October 2017
2. ↑ Official report of the 1964 Olympic Games ( memento of the original from June 30, 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. P. 74 (English) from library.la84.org (PDF), accessed on October 27, 2017 
3. ↑ Official report of the 1964 Olympic Games ( memento of the original from June 30, 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. P. 78 (English) from library.la84.org (PDF), accessed on October 27, 2017 
4. ↑ SportsReference , accessed October 27, 2017