1968 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 4 × 100 m (men)

sport	athletics
discipline	4 x 100 meter relay
gender	Men
Attendees	76 athletes from 19 countries
Competition location	Estadio Olímpico Universitario
Competition phase	October 19, 1968 (preliminary / semi-finals) October 20, 1968 (final)
Medalist  United States  CUB  FRA

The men's 4 x 100 meter relay at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City was held on October 19 and 20, 1968 in the Estadio Olímpico Universitario . 76 athletes took part in nineteen seasons.

The US relay ( Charles Greene , Mel Pender , Ronnie Ray Smith , Jim Hines ) was Olympic champion in a new world record time ahead of the relay from Cuba ( Hermes Ramírez , Juan Morales , Pablo Montes , Enrique Figuerola ) and France ( Gérard Fenouil , Jocelyn Delecour , Claude Piquemal , Roger Bambuck ).

For the Federal Republic of Germany - officially Germany - Karl-Peter Schmidtke , Gert Metz , Gerhard Wucherer and Joachim Eigenherr started , for the GDR - officially East Germany - Heinz Erbstößer , Hartmut Schelter , Peter Haase and Harald Eggers . Both seasons reached the finals. The GDR team finished fifth, the BR Germany team sixth.
Relays from Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein did not take part.

Existing records

World record	38.6 s race over 4 × 110  yards (= 4 × 100.584 m)	USA / Jamaica team of the University of Southern California ( Earl McCullouch , Fred Kuller , OJ Simpson , Lennox Miller )	Provo , USA	June 17, 1967
Olympic record	39.0 s	USA ( Paul Drayton , Gerry Ashworth , Richard Stebbins , Bob Hayes )	Tokyo finals , Japan	October 21, 1964

Relay world records with casts from different countries are no longer recognized today.

Conducting the competition

The teams competed on October 19 for a total of three preliminary runs. The five best seasons and the fastest after that qualified for the semi-finals on the same day. From this, the four best teams reached the final on October 20th.

Time schedule

October 19, 10.40 a.m .: Preliminaries
October 19, 4 p.m .: Semi-finals
October 20, 4.50 p.m .: Final

Note: All times are Mexico City local time ( UTC −6)

The relays directly qualified for the next round are highlighted in light blue, the relays qualified over time are highlighted in light green.

Prelims

Date: October 19, 1968, from 10:40 a.m.

Forward 1

space	Season	occupation	Time (hand stopped)	Time (electronically stopped)	annotation
1	Cuba	Hermes Ramírez Juan Morales Pablo Montes Enrique Figuerola	38.7 s	38.76 s	OR
2	United States	Charles Greene Mel Pender Ronnie Ray Smith Jim Hines	38.8 s	38.86 s
3	Trinidad and Tobago	Raymond Fabien Winston Short Carl Archer Edwin Roberts	38.9 s	38.97 s
4th	Bahamas	Jerry Wisdom Tom Robinson Bernard Nottage Edwin Johnson	39.4 s	39.45 s
5	Nigeria	Timon Oyebami Robert Ojo Benedict Majekodunmi Kolawole Abdulai	39.4 s	39.47 s
6th	Ghana	Edward Owusu Michael Ahey William Quaye James Addy	39.8 s	39.87 s
7th	Dominican Republic	Luis Soriano Alberto Torres Rafael Domínguez Porfirio Veras	41.4 s	41.48 s
DNS	Puerto Rico

Forward 2

space	Season	occupation	Time (hand stopped)	Time (electronically stopped)	annotation
1	Jamaica	Errol Stewart Michael Fray Clifton Forbes Lennox Miller	38.6 s	38.65 s	WRe / OR
2	France	Gérard Fenouil Jocelyn Delecour Claude Piquemal Roger Bambuck	39.0 s	39.03 s
3	BR Germany	Karl-Peter Schmidtke Gert Metz Gerhard Wucherer Joachim Eigenherr	39.1 s	39.16 s
4th	Great Britain	Joseph Speake Ronald Jones Ralph Banthorpe Barrie Kelly	39.3 s	39.33 s
5	Ivory Coast	Atta Kouakou N'dri Kouame Boy Akba Diby Gaoussou Koné	39.6 s	39.68 s
6th	Japan	Naoki Abe Hiroomi Yamada Shinji Ogura Hideo Iijima	40.0 s	40.02 s
7th	Mexico	Félix Bécquer Enrique Labadie Galdino Flores Miguel Ángel González	40.0 s	40.09 s

Forward 3

space	Season	occupation	Time (hand stopped)	Time (electronically stopped)	annotation
1	GDR	Heinz Erbstößer Hartmut Schelter Peter Haase Harald Eggers	38.9 s	38.93 s
2	Soviet Union	Oleksiy Khlopotnov Yevgeny Sinyayev Nikolai Ivanov Vladislav Sapeja	39.0 s	39.03 s
3	Poland	Wiesław Maniak Edward Romanowski Zenon Nowosz Marian Dudziak	40.2 s	40.27 s
4th	Malaysia	Manikavasagam Jegathesan Tambusamy Krishnan Rajalingam Gunaratnam Ooi Hock Lim	40.6 s	40.69 s
5	Italy	Sergio Ottolina Ennio Preatoni Angelo Sguazzero Livio Berruti	41.5 s	41.59 s
DNS	Taiwan
	Switzerland
	Venezuela

Semifinals

Date: October 19, 1960, from 4 p.m.

Run 1

space	Season	occupation	Time (hand stopped)	Time (electronically stopped)	annotation
1	Jamaica	Errol Stewart Michael Fray Clifton Forbes Lennox Miller	38.3 s	38.39 s	WR
2	GDR	Heinz Erbstößer Hartmut Schelter Peter Haase Harald Eggers	38.7 s	38.72 s
3	BR Germany	Karl-Peter Schmidtke Gert Metz Gerhard Wucherer Joachim Eigenherr	38.9 s	38.93 s
4th	Poland	Wiesław Maniak Edward Romanowski Zenon Nowosz Marian Dudziak	38.9 s	38.99 s
5	Great Britain	Joseph Speake Ronald Jones Ralph Banthorpe Barrie Kelly	39.4 s	39.46 s
6th	Trinidad and Tobago	Raymond Fabien Winston Short Carl Archer Edwin Roberts	39.5 s	39.52 s
7th	Ivory Coast	Atta Kouakou N'dri Kouame Boy Akba Diby Gaoussou Koné	39.6 s	39.69 s
8th	Malaysia	Manikavasagam Jegathesan Tambusamy Krishnan Rajalingam Gunaratnam Ooi Hock Lim	40.8 s	40.89 s

Run 2

space	Season	occupation	Time (hand stopped)	Time (electronically stopped)	annotation
1	Cuba	Hermes Ramírez Juan Morales Pablo Montes Enrique Figuerola	38.6 s	38.64 s
2	United States	Charles Greene Mel Pender Ronnie Ray Smith Jim Hines	38.6 s	38.69 s
3	France	Gérard Fenouil Jocelyn Delecour Claude Piquemal Roger Bambuck	38.8 s	38.83 s
4th	Italy	Sergio Ottolina Ennio Preatoni Angelo Sguazzero Livio Berruti	39.4 s	39.46 s
5	Ghana	Edward Owusu Michael Ahey William Quaye James Addy	39.9 s	39.96 s
DNF	Soviet Union	Oleksiy Khlopotnov Yevgeny Sinyayev Nikolai Ivanov Vladislav Sapeja
DSQ	Nigeria	Timon Oyebami Robert Ojo Benedict Majekodunmi Kolawole Abdulai
	Bahamas	Jerry Wisdom Tom Robinson Bernard Nottage Edwin Johnson

final

space	Surname	nation	Time (hand stopped)	Time (electronically stopped)	annotation
1	United States	Charles Greene Mel Pender Ronnie Ray Smith Jim Hines	38.2 s	38.24 s	WR
2	Cuba	Hermes Ramírez Juan Morales Pablo Montes Enrique Figuerola	38.3 s	38.40 s
3	France	Gérard Fenouil Jocelyn Delecour Claude Piquemal Roger Bambuck	38.4 s	38.43 s
4th	Jamaica	Errol Stewart Michael Fray Clifton Forbes Lennox Miller	38.4 s	38.47 s
5	GDR	Heinz Erbstößer Hartmut Schelter Peter Haase Harald Eggers	38.6 s	38.66 s
6th	BR Germany	Karl-Peter Schmidtke Gert Metz Gerhard Wucherer Joachim Eigenherr	38.7 s	38.76 s
7th	Italy	Sergio Ottolina Ennio Preatoni Angelo Sguazzero Livio Berruti	39.2 s	39.22 s
8th	Poland	Wiesław Maniak Edward Romanowski Zenon Nowosz Marian Dudziak	39.2 s	39.22 s

Date: October 20, 1968, 4:50 p.m.

Excellent times were already achieved in the preliminary round and the semi-finals. In the first run, Cuba was the first to improve the Olympic record by three tenths of a second. Then the Jamaican relay was again a tenth of a second faster and thus equalized the world record . In the semifinals, the Jamaicans improved by a further three tenths and were the sole world record holders. The 39-second mark - a world record four years ago - was beaten by seven seasons before the final.

In the final, the high expectations were fully met. In the last change, however, neither the USA nor Jamaica led, but the Cuban relay, Pablo Montes switched to Enrique Figuerola. The US final runner Jim Hines, winner of the 100-meter individual race , was about one and a half meters behind, but Hines passed the Cubans and brought the US relay to the Olympic victory with a lead of almost two meters and a new world record. Cuba won the silver medal quite surprisingly, ahead of the team from France, which set a new European record at the same time as the Cubans. The Jamaicans, who were also favorites, only stayed fourth at the same time as Cuba and France. The GDR was fifth, the FR Germany sixth. These two seasons were also only two and three tenths of a second behind Cuba.

In the twelfth Olympic final there was the tenth US victory.

Cuba won the first medal in this discipline.

literature

• Ekkehard zur Megede , The History of Olympic Athletics, Volume 2: 1948–1968, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 1st edition 1969, pp. 375–377

Video

• Record relay races. Jim Hines and his team at Olimpic Mexico-1968 4x100m 38.19 , published April 19, 2017 on youtube.com, accessed November 7, 2017

Web links

• SportsReference 4 × 100 m , accessed on November 7, 2017
• Official report - summary p. 80f., English / French. (PDF), accessed on November 7, 2017
• Official report of the Olympic Games 1968 p. 524f, English / French. (PDF), accessed on November 7, 2017

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Berlin 2009 Page 561 (Engl.) ( Memento of 29 June 2011 at the Internet Archive ), accessed on November 7, 2017
2. ↑ Official report of the 1968 Olympic Games ( Memento of the original from September 17, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been 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. 11, English / French (PDF), accessed on November 7, 2017 
3. ↑ Official report of the 1968 Olympic Games ( Memento of the original from September 17, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been 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. 524, English / French (PDF), accessed on November 7, 2017 
4. ↑ ^{a b} Official Report of the 1968 Olympic Games ( Memento of the original from September 17, 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. 525, English / French (PDF), accessed on November 7, 2017 
5. ↑ SportsReference , accessed November 7, 2017