1972 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 4 × 100 m (women)

sport	athletics
discipline	4 x 100 meter relay
gender	Women
Attendees	60 athletes from 15 countries
Competition location	Olympic Stadium Munich
Competition phase	September 9, 1972 (preliminary) September 10, 1972 (final)
Medalists  FRG  GDR  CUB

The women's 4 x 100 meter relay at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich was held on September 9 and 10, 1972 in the Munich Olympic Stadium. Sixty athletes took part in fifteen seasons.

The relay of the Federal Republic of Germany became Olympic champion in a new world record time with the cast of Christiane Krause , Ingrid Mickler-Becker , Annegret Irrgang and Heide Rosendahl . The GDR relay won silver with Evelin Kaufer , Christina Heinich , Bärbel Struppert and Renate Stecher , bronze went to Cuba ( Marlene Elejarde , Carmen Valdés , Fulgencia Romay , Silvia Chivás ).

Relays from Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein did not take part.

Existing records

World record	42.88 s	USA ( Margaret Bailes , Barbara Ferrell , Mildrette Netter , Wyomia Tyus )	Mexico City , Mexico	20th October 1968
Olympic record			Mexico City Final , Mexico

Comment on the records: In these years, electronic timekeeping was already used at many events. However, the records were usually still held in tenths of a second. They were a mixture of hand-timed and rounded electronically determined times. Since the manual timekeeping turned out to be one to two tenths of a second better due to the reaction times of the judges, one also began to keep separate, purely electronically determined record overviews.
In this discipline, the world and Olympic record holders are identical under both readings. The above The US relay ran electronically stopped as stated above for 42.88 seconds when it won the Olympic Games in Mexico City. When stopped by hand, the value was 42.8 seconds.

Conducting the competition

The relays completed two preliminary runs on September 9, from which the four best teams qualified for the final on September 10.

Time schedule

September 9
, 5.10 p.m . : Preliminaries September 10, 3.55 p.m .: Final

The qualified relays are highlighted in light blue.

Preliminary round

September 9, from 5.10 p.m .: Final

Forward 1

space	Season	occupation	time	annotation
1	Cuba	Marlene Elejarde Carmen Valdés Fulgencia Romay Silvia Chivás	43.67 s
2	Soviet Union	Marina Sidorova Galina Bucharina Lyudmila Scharkowa Nadezhda Besfamilnaja	43.77 s
3	Australia	Maureen Caird Pam Ryan Marion Hoffman Raelene Boyle	44.03 s
4th	Poland	Helena Fliśnik Barbara Bakulin Urszula Jóźwik Danuta Jędrejek	44.19 s
5	Italy	Maddalena Grassano Alessandra Orselli Laura Nappi Cecilia Molinari	44.62 s
6th	Finland	Tuula Rautanen Mona-Lisa Strandvall Pirjo Wilmi Marika Eklund	44.68 s
7th	Nigeria	Emilia Edet Ashanti Obi Helen Olaye Modupe Oshikoya	45.15 s
DSQ	Philippines	Lucila Salao Carmen Torres Aida Mantawel Amelita Alanes

Forward 2

space	Season	occupation	time	annotation
1	GDR	Evelin Kaufer Christina Heinich Bärbel Struppert Renate Stecher	42.88 s	WRel eg
2	BR Germany	Christiane Krause Ingrid Mickler-Becker Annegret Irrgang Heide Rosendahl	42.97 s
3	United States	Martha Watson Mattiline Render Mildrette Netter Iris Davis	43.07 s
4th	Great Britain	Andrea Lynch Della Pascoe Judy Vernon Anita Neil	43.76 s
5	Bulgaria	Diana Jorgowa Iwanka Walkowa Iwanka Wenkowa Jordanka Jankowa	43.95 s
DSQ	Jamaica	Leleith Hodges Vilma Charlton Carol Cummings Debbie Byfield
	Sweden	Anneli Olsson Gunhild Olsson Karin Lundgren Linda Haglund

final

space	Season	occupation	time	annotation
1	BR Germany	Christiane Krause Ingrid Mickler-Becker Annegret Irrgang Heide Rosendahl	42.81 s	WRel
2	GDR	Evelin Kaufer Christina Heinich Bärbel Struppert Renate Stecher	42.95 s
3	Cuba	Marlene Elejarde Carmen Valdés Fulgencia Romay Silvia Chivás	43.36 s
4th	United States	Martha Watson Mattiline Render Mildrette Netter Iris Davis	43.39 s
5	Soviet Union	Marina Sidorova Galina Bucharina Lyudmila Scharkowa Nadezhda Besfamilnaja	43.59 s
6th	Australia	Maureen Caird Raelene Boyle Marion Hoffman Pam Ryan	43.61 s
7th	Great Britain	Andrea Lynch Della Pascoe Judy Vernon Anita Neil	43.71 s
8th	Poland	Helena Fliśnik Barbara Bakulin Urszula Jóźwik Danuta Jędrejek	44.20 s

September 10, 3:55 p.m .: Final

The two German teams from the GDR and the Federal Republic started as favorites. This duel was particularly explosive during the Cold War and the East-West conflict with the question of a better system between the GDR and the Federal Republic. With corresponding tension, which however among the viewers v. a. sporting aspects, the race was expected. The two teams met in the second run. There, the GDR was ahead by a good tenth of a second, setting the US world record of 1968 , which is evaluated according to electronic standards .

With Christiane Krause and Ingrid Mickler-Becker in the first two positions, the German relay team gained a small lead over the GDR with runners Evelin Kaufer and Christina Heinich. Annegret Irrgang - who later became Annegret Richter - then handed over the baton to the final runner Heide Rosendahl with a wafer-thin margin. The GDR switched from Bärbel Struppert to the sprint double Olympic champion Renate Stecher. At that point, the race seemed to be heading towards a GDR victory, because Rosendahl's lead over the overpowering Renate Stecher would actually have had to be significantly greater to enable the West German relay to win. But Heide Rosendahl astonished viewers and experts. She was able to keep the lead and bring her team to Olympic victory with a bit more than a tenth of a second ahead. The bronze medal behind the GDR was won by the relay runners from Cuba. They were four tenths of a second behind the GDR and only three hundredths of a second ahead of the Americans.

By electronic standards, the winning time was a new world and a new Olympic record. On the basis of the official rules, according to which times for records are to be rounded to tenths of a second, the existing world and Olympic records were equalized.

For the first time a German - here at the same time Federal German - relay won the gold medal.

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. 56

Video

• 1972 ORO DELL GERMANIA OVEST 4X100 FEMMINILE , in German, published on March 28, 2015 on youtube.com, accessed on December 7, 2017

Web links

• SportsReference 4 × 100 m , accessed December 7, 2017
• Official report, Volume 3 "The competitions" , p. 69, English / French / German (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on December 7, 2017

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Berlin 2009, page 650 ( Memento from June 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ IAAF world records. 100 m men on rekorde-im-sport.de, accessed on December 7, 2017
3. ↑ 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 7, 2017 
4. ↑ ^{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. 69, English / French / German (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on December 7, 2017 
5. ↑ SportsReference , accessed December 7, 2017