1972 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 10,000 m (men)

sport	athletics
discipline	10,000 meter run
gender	Men
Attendees	51 athletes from 33 countries
Competition location	Olympic Stadium Munich
Competition phase	August 31, 1972 (preliminary) September 3, 1972 (final)
Medalist Lasse Virén ( FIN )   Emiel Puttemans ( BEL )   Miruts Yifter ( ETH )

The men's 10,000-meter run at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich was held on August 31 and September 3, 1972 in the Munich Olympic Stadium. 51 athletes took part.

Olympic champion was the Finn Lasse Virén , who set a new world record in the final. The silver medal went to the Belgian Emiel Puttemans , bronze went to the Ethiopian Miruts Yifter .

For the Federal Republic of Germany - officially Germany - Günter Mielke and Manfred Letzerich started . Both were eliminated in the heats, Mielke had to give up his run, Letzerich was 14th of his heat.
The two Swiss Werner Dössegger and Albrecht Moser were also eliminated in the preliminary stages .
Runners from the GDR, Austria and Liechtenstein did not take part.

Existing records

World record	27: 39.4 min	Ron Clarke ( Australia )	Oslo , Norway	July 14, 1965
Olympic record	28: 24.4 min	Billy Mills ( United States )	Tokyo 10,000 meter run , Japan	October 14, 1964

Conducting the competition

The athletes started a total of three heats on August 31. The first four and the three fastest runners afterwards reached the final on September 3rd.

Time schedule

August 31, 5:30 p.m .: Preliminaries
September 3, 5:15 p.m .: Final

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

Preliminary round

Date: August 31, 1972, from 5.30 p.m.

Forward 1

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Emiel Puttemans	Belgium	27: 53.4 min	OR
2	David Bedford	United Kingdom	27: 53.6 min
3	Javer Álvarez	Spain	28: 08.6 min
4th	Abdelkader Zaddem	Tunisia	28: 14.8 min
5	Josef Jánský	Czechoslovakia	28: 23.2 min
6th	Anatoly Badrankov	Soviet Union	28: 35.8 min
7th	Noël Tijou	France	28: 36.2 min
8th	Werner Doessegger	Switzerland	28: 36.4 min
9	Tadesse Wolde-Medhin	Ethiopia	28: 45.4 min
10	Akio Usami	Japan	29: 24.8 min
11	Jeff Galloway	United States	29: 35.0 min
12	Naftali Temu	Kenya	30: 19.6 min
13	Esaie Fongang	Cameroon	31: 32.6 min
14th	Phang Cue Suppiah	Singapore	31: 59.2 min
15th	Crispin Quispe	Bolivia	32: 31.8 min
16	Giuseppe Cindolo	Italy	33: 03.4 min
DNF	Günter Mielke	BR Germany
	Usaia Sotutu	Fiji

Forward 2

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Mohamed Gammoudi	Tunisia	27: 54.8 min
2	Mariano Haro	Spain	27: 56.0 min
3	Frank Shorter	United States	27: 58.2 min
4th	Let Virén	Finland	28: 04.4 min
5	Paul Mose	Kenya	28: 18.8 min
6th	Raschid Sharafetdinov	Soviet Union	28: 24.6 min
7th	Wohib Masresha	Ethiopia	28: 28.2 min
8th	Pedro Miranda	Mexico	28: 35.8 min
9	Karel Lismont	Belgium	28: 41.8 min
10	Neil Cusack	Ireland	28: 45.8 min
11	Dave Holt	United Kingdom	28: 46.8 min
12	Keisuke Sawaki	Japan	29: 29.0 min
13	Rafael Perez	Costa Rica	29: 36.6 min
14th	Julio Quevedo	Guatemala	30: 08.4 min
15th	Abdel Hamid Khamis	Egypt	30: 19.2 min
16	Lucien Rosa	Ceylon	30: 20.2 min
DNF	Richard Mabuza	Swaziland
DNS	Abdi Gulet	Somalia
	By hall	Norway

Forward 3

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Miruts Yifter	Ethiopia	28: 18.2 min
2	Willy Polleunis	Belgium	28: 19.8 min
3	Pavlo Andreev	Soviet Union	28: 21.0 min
4th	Dane Korica	Yugoslavia	28: 22.2 min
5	Juan Martínez	Mexico	28: 23.2 min
6th	Lachie Stewart	United States	28: 31.4 min
7th	Arne Risa	Norway	28: 31.8 min
8th	Jon Anderson	United States	28: 34.2 min
9	Carlos Lopes	Portugal	28: 53.6 min
10	Albrecht Moser	Switzerland	29: 05.8 min
11	Richard Juma	Kenya	29: 13.0 min
12	Domingo Tibaduiza	Colombia	29: 24.0 min
13	Shag Mousa Medani	Sudan	29: 32.8 min
14th	Manfred Letzerich	BR Germany	29: 37.8 min
15th	Hikmet Şen	Turkey	29: 51.8 min
DNF	Anilus Joseph	Haiti
	Gavin Thorley	New Zealand
DNS	Juha Väätäinen	Finland
	Edmundo Warnke	Chile

• 

  Naftali Temu, Kenya

• 

  Willy Polleunis, Belgium

final

Final scene on a postage stamp of the emirate Umm al-Qaiwain from 1972: on the right the Finnish Olympic champion Lasse Virén, in the middle in the green jersey of the Ethiopian Miruts Yifter, on the left Frank Shorter, USA

Date: September 3, 1972, 5:15 p.m.

The field was so large that it was necessary to run heats on this long distance . That last happened at the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp . Fast times were already run in these preliminary rounds. Five athletes undercut the 28-minute mark, and Belgian Emiel Puttemans improved Billy Mills ' Olympic record by more than half a minute in the first run . The outcome of the race was open, there was a larger group of favorites. The Finnish double European champion from 1971 in the 5000 and 10,000 meters , Juha Väätäinen, his compatriot Lasse Virén, the Puttemans who were so strong in the run-up, the Tunisian Mohamed Gammoudi, 1968 Olympic champion in the 5000 and second in the 10,000 meters, as well as the Briton David Bedford .

Bedford, who had to use his speed on the track because of his weak sprints, took the lead right from the start and kept the pace high up to the 2000 meter mark. The race then slowed down a bit, but remained at a high level. Bedford continued to lead. In the twelfth lap a group of nine had formed. On the back straight there was a contact between Puttemans, who ran in fourth place, and Virén, who ran up. The Finn fell, the Tunisian Gammoudi behind him stumbled over Virén and was initially injured. Virén was able to get up quickly and start the race again in eighth place. Before the home stretch of the same lap he had run back to the group. Gammoudi also tried again, but gave up the race after another one and a half laps.

After about 6000 meters, Virén took the lead, the speed remained fairly constant up to the 9000 meter mark. Gradually the field tore apart more and more. Five laps from the finish there were five runners together: Virén, the Spaniard Mariano Haro, the Ethiopian Miruts Yifter, Puttemans and the American Frank Shorter. On the penultimate lap, Haro took over the lead and pushed again. Shorter was falling behind now. With 600 meters from the finish, Virén tightened and Haro could no longer follow either. Puttemans and Yifter fought to catch up, but Virén was now gaining distance from his pursuers. Behind that there was also a gap from Puttemans to Yifter. On the back straight of the last lap, the Belgian tried everything again, narrowed the gap and almost came up again. But Lasse Virén was unstoppable and won the gold medal with a lead of around seven meters from Emiel Puttemans and, despite his fall, erased Ron Clarke's world record, which had been in place for more than seven years . Bronze went to Miruts Yifter, who was well ahead of Mariano Haro. Behind Frank Shorter, David Bedford finished sixth.

For Lasse Virén it was the first of two Olympic victories in Munich . A week later he triumphed over 5000 meters.

In the thirteenth Olympic final, Virén won the sixth gold medal for Finland over 5000 meters.

Emiel Puttemans won the first Belgian medal in this discipline.

Split times
Intermediate mark	Meanwhile	Leading	1000 m time
1000 m	2: 36.8 min	David Bedford	2: 36.8 min
2000 m	5: 18.8 min	David Bedford	2: 42.0 min
3000 m	8: 06.4 min	David Bedford	2: 47.6 min
4000 m	10: 55.4 min	David Bedford	2: 49.0 min
5000 m	13: 43.9 min	David Bedford	2: 48.5 min
6000 m	16: 35.7 min	David Bedford	2: 51.8 min
7000 m	19: 27.7 min	Let Virén	2: 52.0 min
8000 m	22: 17.7 min	Let Virén	2: 50.0 min
9000 m	25: 09.2 min	Let Virén	2: 51.5 min
10,000 m	27: 38.4 min	Let Virén	2: 29.2 min

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Let Virén	Finland	27: 38.35 min	WR
2	Emiel Puttemans	Belgium	27: 39.35 min
3	Miruts Yifter	Ethiopia	27: 40.96 min
4th	Mariano Haro	Spain	27: 48.14 min
5	Frank Shorter	United States	27: 51.32 min
6th	David Bedford	United Kingdom	28: 05.44 min
7th	Dane Korica	Yugoslavia	28: 15.18 min
8th	Abdelkader Zaddem	Tunisia	28: 18.17 min
9	Josef Jánský	Czechoslovakia	28: 23.59 min
10	Juan Martínez	Mexico	28: 44.08 min
11	Pavlo Andreev	Soviet Union	28: 46.27 min
12	Javier Álvarez	Spain	28: 56.38 min
13	Paul Mose	Kenya	29: 02.87 min
14th	Willy Polleunis	Belgium	29: 10.15 min
DNF	Mohamed Gammoudi	Tunisia

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 , p. 33

Video

• Munich 1972: 10,000 m , published on April 19, 2015 on youtube.com, accessed on November 20, 2017

Web links

• SportsReference 10,000m , accessed November 20, 2017
• Official report, Volume 3 "The competitions" , p. 53, English / French / German (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on November 20, 2017

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Berlin 2009 Page 551 (Engl.) ( Memento of 29 June 2011 at the Internet Archive ), accessed on November 20, 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 November 20, 2017 
3. ↑ ^{a b} 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. 53, English / French / German (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on November 20, 2017 
4. ↑ SportsReference , accessed November 20, 2017