1972 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 1500 m (women)

sport	athletics
discipline	1500 meter run
gender	Women
Attendees	36 athletes from 21 countries
Competition location	Olympic Stadium Munich
Competition phase	September 4, 1972 (preliminary) September 7, 1972 (semi-finals) September 9, 1972 (final)
Medalists Lyudmila Bragina ( URS )   Gunhild Hoffmeister ( GDR )   Paola Cacchi ( ITA )

The women's 1,500 meter run at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich was held on September 4th, 7th and 9th, 1972 in the Munich Olympic Stadium. 36 athletes took part in the Olympic premiere of this discipline.

This competition was on the Olympic program for the first time. Little by little, the athletes also conquered the longer running routes previously reserved for men. However, it would be 1984 before the next step was taken. It was not until Los Angeles that the first real long distances at the Olympic Games were introduced for women with the 3000 meter run and the marathon .

The first Olympic champion was Lyudmila Bragina from the Soviet Union, who won with a new world record time. Gunhild Hoffmeister from the GDR won the silver medal, while the bronze went to the Italian Paola Cacchi .

For the Federal Republic of Germany - officially Germany - Christa Merten , Gerda Ranz and Ellen Tittel started . While Ranz and Merten were eliminated in the preliminary stages, Tittel was able to qualify for the final, but not finish this race.
In addition to the medalist Hoffmeister, Karin Burneleit competed for the GDR . Burneleit also made it to the final and finished fourth there.
The Swiss Marijke Moser and Margrit Hess were eliminated in the preliminary stages.
Runners from Austria and Liechtenstein did not take part.

Existing records

World record	4: 06.9 min	Lyudmila Bragina ( Soviet Union )	Moscow , Soviet Union (now Russia )	July 18, 1972
Olympic record	There was not yet an Olympic record for the 1500 meters , as this competition was held for the first time in Munich .

Conducting the competition

The athletes competed in four heats on September 4th. The four best runners and the two fastest runners reached the semi-finals on September 7th. From the preliminary rounds, the four best runners and the two fastest runners qualified for the final on September 9th.

Time schedule

September 4, 3:45 p.m.: Preliminary stages

September 7, 2:15 p.m .: semi-finals

September 9, 6 p.m .: Final

The directly qualified athletes are highlighted in light blue, the others in light green.

Preliminary round

Date: September 4, 1972, from 3:45 p.m.

Forward 1

The Dutch Ilja Keizer came in sixth place

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Lyudmila Bragina	Soviet Union	4: 06.47 min	WR
2	Glenda Reiser	Canada	4: 06.71 min
3	Ilya Keizer	Netherlands	4: 08.00 min
4th	Jennifer Orr	Australia	4: 08.06 min
5	Jaroslava Jehličková	Czechoslovakia	4: 08.39 min
6th	Christa Merten	BR Germany	4: 12.60 min
7th	Joan Allison	Great Britain	4: 14.89 min
8th	Marijke Moser	Switzerland	4:24:94 min
9	Lee Chiu-hsia	Taiwan	4: 37.15 min

Forward 2

The Yugoslav Vera Nikolić, retired after her fifth place over 800 meters in the run

Berny Boxem from the Netherlands came in ninth

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Paola Cacchi	Italy	4: 09.53 min
2	Wasilena Amzina	Bulgaria	4: 12.85 min
3	Berny Boxem	Netherlands	4: 13.83 min
4th	Francie Kraker	United States	4: 14.73 min
5	Thelma Wright	Canada	4: 15.43 min
6th	Grete Andersen	Norway	4: 16.00 min
7th	Sára Ligetkuti	Hungary	4: 16.08 min
8th	Gerda Ranz	BR Germany	4: 18.60 min
9	Vera Nikolić	Yugoslavia	4: 23.36 min
DNS	Arda Kalpakian	Lebanon

Forward 3

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Tamara Pangelova	Soviet Union	4: 10.75 min
2	Karin Burneleit	GDR	4: 10.83 min
3	Francie Larrieu Smith	United States	4: 11.18 min
4th	Joyce Smith	Great Britain	4: 11.27 min
5	Inger Knutsson	Sweden	4: 11.32 min
6th	Mary Tracey	Ireland	4: 16.43 min
7th	Sinikka Tyynela	Finland	4: 21.40 min
8th	Emesia Chizunga	Malawi	4: 41.47 min
DNF	Magdolna Kulcsár	Hungary

Forward 4

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Ellen Tittel	BR Germany	4: 12.12 min
2	Gunhild Hoffmeister	GDR	4: 12.80 min
3	Sheila Carey	Great Britain	4: 13.01 min
4th	Wenche Sørum	Norway	4: 14.10 min
5	Tonka Petrova	Bulgaria	4: 14.95 min
6th	Anne-Marie Nenzell	Sweden	4: 16.67 min
7th	Margrit Hess	Switzerland	4: 19.67 min
8th	Tamara Kasachkova	Soviet Union	4: 20.15 min
9	Chereno Maiyo	Kenya	4: 20.9 min
DNS	Doris Brown	United States

Semifinals

Date: September 7, 1972, from 2.15 p.m.

Run 1

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Tamara Pangelova	Soviet Union	4: 07.66 min
2	Paola Cacchi	Italy	4: 07.83 min
3	Gunhild Hoffmeister	GDR	4: 07.94 min
4th	Ilya Keizer	Netherlands	4: 08.25 min
5	Wasilena Amzina	Bulgaria	4: 09.12 min
6th	Joyce Smith	Great Britain	4: 09.37 min
7th	Glenda Reiser	Canada	4: 09.51 min
8th	Francie Kraker	United States	4: 12.76 min
9	Inger Knutsson	Sweden	4: 14.97 min

Run 2

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Lyudmila Bragina	Soviet Union	4: 05.07 min	WR
2	Karin Burneleit	GDR	4: 05.78 min
3	Ellen Tittel	BR Germany	4: 06.65 min
4th	Sheila Carey	Great Britain	4: 07.41 min
5	Berny Boxem	Netherlands	4: 08.81 min
6th	Jennifer Orr	Australia	4: 08.86 min
7th	Wenche Sørum	Norway	4: 09.70 min
8th	Francie Larrieu Smith	United States	4: 15.26 min
9	Jaroslava Jehličková	Czechoslovakia	4: 18.16 min

final

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Lyudmila Bragina	Soviet Union	4: 01.38 min	WR
2	Gunhild Hoffmeister	GDR	4: 02.83 min
3	Paola Cacchi	Italy	4: 02.85 min
4th	Karin Burneleit	GDR	4: 04.11 min
5	Sheila Carey	Great Britain	4: 04.81 min
6th	Ilya Keizer	Netherlands	4: 05.13 min
7th	Tamara Pangelova	Soviet Union	4: 06.45 min
8th	Jennifer Orr	Australia	4: 12.15 min
9	Berny Boxem	Netherlands	4: 13.10 min
DNF	Ellen Tittel	BR Germany

Date: September 9, 1972, 6:00 p.m.

The favorite was the Soviet world record holder Lyudmila Bragina. Other medal contenders were the Czechoslovak runner Jaroslava Jehličková, European champion from 1969 and the predecessor of Bragina as world record holder, Karin Burneleit from the GDR, European champion from 1971 , and her compatriot Gunhild Hoffmeister, vice European champion in 1971 and here in Munich already second in the Olympic 800 meters . Jehličková was eliminated in the semi-finals. Bragina already improved her own world record by almost half a second in the preliminary round. In the semifinals she was another one and a half seconds faster. The existing leaderboards were also improved by many seconds in the other preliminary and intermediate runs.

In the final, the Dutch rider Berny Boxem took the lead first, the passage time over 400 meters was a very fast 1: 02.45 min. Boxem's compatriot Ilja Keizer took over the lead, Burneleit, the German runner Ellen Tittel and Hoffmeister followed closely in third to fifth place. After 700 meters, Bragina pushed herself forward and sharply increased the pace, which had now slowed down. The 800-meter split was 2:09.96 min. H. the second lap was covered in 1: 07.51 minutes. At first Keizer tried to follow the Soviet world record holder, but there was quickly an increasing gap to the rest of the field. But the Dutch woman had to let go, Bragina was alone in front. Behind her, the British Sheila Carey and then Hoffmeister ran past Keizer. At the beginning of the last lap, Bragina's lead was about ten meters. She could no longer be caught, although the gap between the runners who were coming up and her became smaller again in the final lap. In the fight for the other medals nothing was decided yet. Hoffmeister and Carey were ahead of Keizer, behind them the Italian Paola Cacchi got better and better into the race. The passage time at 1200 meters was 3: 14.64 minutes, lap three was covered in 1: 04.68 minutes. In the front Lyudmila Bragina ran towards the Olympic victory and improved her recently set world record by almost four seconds. She managed the last lap in 1: 04.1 minutes. In the end, Hoffmeister and Cacchi fought the battle for silver and bronze together. Shortly before the finish, it almost looked as if the Italian could overtake the GDR runner. But Gunhild Hoffmeister prevailed and won the silver medal in front of Paola Cacchi - former Paola Pigni. Karin Burneleit was fourth ahead of Sheila Carey. Up to and including Carey, everyone stayed below Bragina's world record from the semi-finals. Ilja Keizer - former Ilja Laman - in sixth place and seventh-placed Tamara Pangelova, USSR, were faster than Bragina's world record from the preliminary round.

literature

• Werner Schneider / Sport-Informations-Dienst / Bertelsmann Sportredaktion, The Olympic Games 1972. Munich - Kiel - Sapporo, Bertelsmann-Verlag, Munich, Gütersloh, Vienna 1972, ISBN 3-570-04559-5 , pp. 54f

Video

• Women's 1500m World Record 1972 Olympics , published February 20, 2013 on youtube.com, accessed December 6, 2017

Web links

• SportsReference 1500m , accessed December 6, 2017
• Official report, Volume 3 "The competitions" , p. 68, English / French / German (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on December 6, 2017

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Berlin 2009 Page 642 (Engl.) ( Memento of 29 June 2011 at the Internet Archive ), accessed on December 6, 2017
2. ↑ Official Report, Volume 3 "The competitions" ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 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. 43, English / French / German (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on December 6, 2017 
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Official Report, Volume 3 "The competitions" ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 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. 68, English / French / German (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on December 6, 2017 
4. ↑ SportsReference , accessed December 6, 2017