1976 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 400 m (men)

sport	athletics
discipline	400 meter run
gender	Men
Attendees	44 athletes from 29 countries
Competition location	Montreal Olympic Stadium
Competition phase	July 26, 1976 (preliminary round / quarter-finals) July 28, 1976 (semi-finals) July 29, 1976 (final)
Medalist Alberto Juantorena ( CUB )   Fred Newhouse ( USA )   Herman Frazier ( USA )

The men's 400-meter run at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal was held on July 26, 28 and 29, 1976 in the Montreal Olympic Stadium. 44 athletes took part.

The Cuban Alberto Juantorena was the Olympic champion . He won ahead of the Americans Fred Newhouse and Herman Frazier .

While runners from the GDR, Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein did not take part, three athletes from the Federal Republic of Germany started. Both Bernd Herrmann , Franz-Peter Hofmeister and Karl Honz reached the semi-finals and were eliminated there.

Existing records

World record	43.86 s	Lee Evans ( USA )	Mexico City , Mexico	October 18, 1968
Olympic record			Mexico City Final , Mexico

Note: In the Official Report, the world and Olympic record are given as 43.81 s. However, other sources indicate the value given here.

Conducting the competition

The athletes competed in six heats on July 26th. The five best runners and the following two fastest made it to the quarter-finals on the same day. From this, the four best runners reached the semifinals on July 28th, from which the four best runners also qualified for the final, which took place on July 29th.

Time schedule

July 26, 11 a.m .: Preliminaries
July 26, 3:15 p.m .: Quarter-finals
July 28, 3:20 p.m .: Semi-finals
July 29, 4 p.m .: Final

Note: All times are local Montreal time ( UTC − 5 )

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

Preliminary round

Date: July 26, 1976, from 11 a.m.

Forward 1

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Herman Frazier	United States	46.09 s
2	Michael Sands	Bahamas	46.52 s
3	Zbigniew Jaremski	Poland	46.68 s
4th	Peter Grant	Australia	47.03 s
5	Brian Saunders	Canada	47.24 s
6th	Carlos Noroña	Cuba	48.46 s
7th	Hamil Grimes	Barbados	49.24 s
8th	Wilfrid Cyriaque	Haiti	51.49 s

Forward 2

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Fred Newhouse	United States	45.42 s
2	Rick Mitchell	Australia	46.11 s
3	Jan Werner	Poland	46.19 s
4th	Alfonso Di Guida	Italy	46.52 s
5	Leighton Priestley	Jamaica	46.74 s
6th	Don Domansky	Canada	47.24 s
7th	Errol Thurton	British Honduras	48.91 s
8th	Ahmed Al-Assiri	Saudi Arabia	49.72 s

Forward 3

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Maxie Parks	United States	46.12 s
2	Delmo da Silva	Brazil	47.21 s
3	Iván Mangual	Puerto Rico	47.39 s
4th	Karl Honz	BR Germany	47.47 s
5	Eddy Gutiérrez	Cuba	47.89 s
6th	Renelda Swan	Bermuda	49.13 s
DNS	Tony Moore	Fiji
	Stavros Tziortzis	Greece

Forward 4

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Alfons Brydenbach	Belgium	46.73 s
2	Jerzy Pietrzyk	Poland	46.92 s
3	Franz-Peter Hofmeister	BR Germany	47.17 s
4th	Ossi Karttunen	Finland	47.22 s
5	Glenn Bogue	Canada	47.42 s
6th	Raymond Heerenveen	Netherlands Antilles	47.44 s
7th	Wavala Kali	Papua New Guinea	48.85 s
8th	Ricardo Larios	Nicaragua	50.52 s

Forward 5

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	David Jenkins	Great Britain	46.60 s
2	Bernd Herrmann	BR Germany	46.99 s
3	Josip Alebić	Yugoslavia	47.03 s
4th	Markku Kukkoaho	Finland	47.67 s
5	Charles Joseph	Trinidad and Tobago	47.72 s
6th	Samba Dièye	Senegal	47.98 s
7th	Bjarni Stefánsson	Iceland	48.34 s

Forward 6

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Mike Solomon	Trinidad and Tobago	47.29 s
2	Glen Cohen	Great Britain	47.77 s
3	Alberto Juantorena	Cuba	47.89 s
4th	Alfred Daley	Jamaica	48.04 s
5	Fred Sowerby	Antigua and Barbuda	48.12 s
7th	Avognan Nogboun	Ivory Coast	48.24 s
8th	José Carvalho	Portugal	48.47 s

Quarter finals

Date: July 26, 1976, from 3:15 p.m.

Run 1

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Herman Frazier	United States	46.52 s
2	Alfons Brydenbach	Belgium	46.56 s
3	Karl Honz	BR Germany	46.94 s
4th	Alfonso Di Guida	Italy	47.07 s
5	Ossi Karttunen	Finland	47.45 s
6th	Peter Grant	Australia	47.69 s
7th	Alfred Daley	Jamaica	48.46 s
8th	Glenn Bogue	Canada	48.98 s

Run 2

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Rick Mitchell	Australia	45.76 s
2	Alberto Juantorena	Cuba	45.92 s
3	Jerzy Pietrzyk	Poland	46.30 s
4th	Brian Saunders	Canada	46.42 s
5	Leighton Priestley	Jamaica	46.45 s
6th	Michael Sands	Bahamas	46.48 s
7th	Iván Mangual	Puerto Rico	46.56 s
8th	Charles Joseph	Trinidad and Tobago	46.61 s

Run 3

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Mike Solomon	Trinidad and Tobago	45.83 s
2	Jan Werner	Poland	45.88 s
3	Maxie Parks	United States	45.99 s
4th	Bernd Herrmann	BR Germany	46.07 s
5	Markku Kukkoaho	Finland	46.24 s
6th	Eddy Gutiérrez	Cuba	46.65 s
7th	Glen Cohen	Great Britain	47.67 s
DNS	Don Domansky	Canada

Run 4

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Fred Newhouse	United States	45.97 s
2	David Jenkins	Great Britain	46.18 s
3	Franz-Peter Hofmeister	BR Germany	46.20 s
4th	Delmo da Silva	Brazil	46.48 s
5	Josip Alebić	Yugoslavia	46.94 s
6th	Zbigniew Jaremski	Poland	47.10 s
7th	Fred Sowerby	Antigua and Barbuda	48.03 s
8th	Raymond Heerenveen	Netherlands Antilles	48.88 s

Semifinals

Date: July 28, 1976, from 3:20 p.m.

Run 1

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Alberto Juantorena	Cuba	45.10 s
2	Alfons Brydenbach	Belgium	45.28 s
3	Maxie Parks	United States	45.61 s
4th	Rick Mitchell	Australia	45.69 s
5	Bernd Herrmann	BR Germany	45.94 s
6th	Brian Saunders	Canada	46.46 s
7th	Alfonso Di Guida	Italy	46.50 s
8th	Delmo da Silva	Brazil	46.69 s

Run 2

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Fred Newhouse	United States	44.89 s
2	David Jenkins	Great Britain	45.20 s
3	Herman Frazier	United States	45.24 s
4th	Jan Werner	Poland	45.44 s
5	Jerzy Pietrzyk	Poland	45.65 s
6th	Franz-Peter Hofmeister	BR Germany	46.05 s
7th	Mike Solomon	Trinidad and Tobago	46.20 s
8th	Karl Honz	BR Germany	46.63 s

final

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Alberto Juantorena	Cuba	44.26 s
2	Fred Newhouse	United States	44.40 s
3	Herman Frazier	United States	44.95 s
4th	Alfons Brydenbach	Belgium	45.04 s
5	Maxie Parks	United States	45.24 s
6th	Rick Mitchell	Australia	45.40 s
7th	David Jenkins	Great Britain	45.57 s
8th	Jan Werner	Poland	45.63 s

Date: July 29, 1976, 4:00 p.m.

The three US runners Herman Frazier, Fred Newhouse and Maxie Parks were considered the challengers of the Cuban Alberto Juantorena, who dominated the leaderboards with top times close to the 44-second mark.

Newhouse and Parks approached the race quickly. Halfway through the race, Newhouse had a lead of about three meters. But this lead melted more and more together. At the beginning of the home stretch Juantorena almost ran aground, while Parks had fallen behind the two and was now fighting for the bronze medal with the Belgian Alfons Brydenbach and Frazier. Herman Frazier won this duel and was third ahead of Alfons Brydenbach and Maxie Parks. In the duel at the very front for the Olympic victory, Alberto Juantorena prevailed on the last twenty meters. Silver went to Fred Newhouse.

Alberto Juantorena became the first Cuban to win Olympic gold in this discipline. It was also the first ever Cuban medal in the men's 400-meter race .
With his victory in the 400 meters, Juantorena was the first athlete to achieve a double victory in the 400 and 800 meters at the Olympic Games . At the Olympic Intermediate Games in Athens in 1906 , US runner Paul Pilgrim achieved the same feat.

literature

• Ernst Huberty / Willy B. Wange, The Olympic Games Montreal Innsbruck 1976, Lingen-Verlag, Cologne 1976, p. 219

Video

• 1976 Olympics Men's 400m Final , published September 4, 2012 on youtube.com, accessed December 11, 2017

Web links

• Athletics at the 1976 Montreal Summer Games: Men's 400 meters in the Sports-Reference database (archived from the original ), accessed April 2, 2020.
• Montréal 1976 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 53, English / French (PDF, 23 MB), accessed on December 11, 2017

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Montréal 1976 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 53, English / French (PDF, 23 MB), accessed on December 11, 2017
2. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Berlin 2009 Page 548 (Engl.) ( Memento of 29 June 2011 at the Internet Archive ), accessed on 11 December 2017
3. ↑ IAAF world records, 400 m men on rekorde-im-sport.de, accessed on December 11, 2017
4. ↑ Montréal 1976 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 23, English / French (PDF, 23 MB), accessed on December 11, 2017
5. ↑ ^{a b c d} Montréal 1976 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 53, English / French (PDF, 23 MB), accessed on December 11, 2017
6. ↑ Athletics at the 1976 Montreal Summer Games: Men's 400 meters in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original ), accessed on April 2, 2020.