1976 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 800 m (men)

sport	athletics
discipline	800 meter run
gender	Men
Attendees	42 athletes from 30 countries
Competition location	Montreal Olympic Stadium
Competition phase	July 23, 1976 (preliminary round) July 24, 1976 (semi-finals) July 25, 1976 (final)
Medalist Alberto Juantorena ( CUB )   Ivo Van Damme ( BEL )   Rick Wohlhuter ( USA )

The men's 800-meter run at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal was held from July 23 to 25, 1976 in the Montreal Olympic Stadium. 42 athletes took part.

The Olympic champion was the Cuban Alberto Juantorena , who set a new world record in the final. The Belgian Ivo Van Damme won the silver medal, the bronze medal went to Rick Wohlhuter from the USA.

Three athletes from the Federal Republic of Germany took part in the competition: Paul-Heinz Wellmann , Thomas Wessinghage and Willi Wülbeck . Wellmann failed in the preliminary round, Wessinghage in the semi-finals. Wülbeck qualified for the final and was fourth there.
Both the Swiss Rolf Gysin and the Liechtenstein Günther Hasler were eliminated in their preliminary stages.
Runners from the GDR and Austria did not take part.

Existing records

World record	1: 43.7 min	Marcello Fiasconaro ( Italy )	Milan , Italy	June 27, 1973
Olympic record	1: 44.40 min	Ralph Doubell ( Australia )	Mexico City Final , Mexico	15th October 1968

Comment on the Olympic record:
At the above Time is the time taken electronically. Officially, record times in 1976 were still kept as a mixture of hand-timed and electronically determined times. The official winning time for Ralph Doubell was actually 1: 44.3 minutes, which was also a world record in 1968.

Conducting the competition

The athletes competed in six heats on July 23. The two best runners and the following four fastest runners made it to the semi-finals on July 24th. From this, the four winners of each of the two races qualified for the final, which took place on July 25th.

Time schedule

July 23, 3 p.m .: preliminary runs

July 24, 4:35 p.m .: semi-finals

July 25, 5:15 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 23, 1976, from 3 p.m.

Forward 1

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Rick Wohlhuter	United States	1: 45.71 min
2	Sriram Singh	India	1: 45.86 min
3	Leandro Civil	Cuba	1: 45.88 min
4th	Marian Gęsicki	Poland	1: 46.36 min
5	Thomas Wessinghage	BR Germany	1: 46.56 min
6th	Viktor Anochin	Soviet Union	1: 46.81 min
7th	Muhammad Younis	Pakistan	1: 48.50 min

Forward 2

The New Zealander John Walker

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Frank Clement	Great Britain	1: 47.51 min
2	James Robinson	United States	1: 47.56 min
3	John Walker	New Zealand	1: 47.63 min
4th	Andrés Ballbé	Spain	1: 48.38 min
5	Fernando Mamede	Portugal	1: 49.58 min
6th	Francisco Solis	Dominican Republic	1: 55.56 min
7th	Wilnor Joseph	Haiti	2: 15.26 min

Forward 3

Evert Hoving from the Netherlands

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Steve Ovett	Great Britain	1: 48.27 min
2	Seymour Newman	Jamaica	1: 48.46 min
3	Paul-Heinz Wellmann	BR Germany	1: 48.47 min
4th	Jozef Plachý	Czechoslovakia	1: 48.63 min
5	Günther Hasler	Liechtenstein	1: 48.83 min
6th	Evert Hoving	Netherlands	1: 48.99 min
7th	Roy Bottse	Suriname	1: 49.85 min
8th	Erasmo Gomez	Nicaragua	1: 57.97 min

Forward 4

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Alberto Juantorena	Cuba	1: 47.15 min
2	Carlo Grippo	Italy	1: 47.21 min
3	János Zemen	Hungary	1: 47.40 min
4th	Milovan Savic	Yugoslavia	1: 47.73 min
5	Jorge Ortíz	Puerto Rico	1: 51.38 min
DSQ	Roqui Sanchez	France
DNS	Markku Taskinen	Finland

Forward 5

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Willi Wuelbeck	BR Germany	1: 48.47 min
2	Horace Tuitt	Trinidad and Tobago	1: 48.48 min
3	Vladimir Ponomarev	Soviet Union	1: 48.59 min
4th	Åke Svensson	Sweden	1: 48.86 min
5	José Marajo	France	1: 49.60 min
6th	Orlando Greene	Barbados	1: 51.43 min
7th	Attiya Al-Qahtani	Saudi Arabia	1: 57.67 min

Forward 6

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Ivo Van Damme	Belgium	1: 47.80 min
2	Luciano Sušanj	Yugoslavia	1: 47.82 min
3	Mark Enyeart	United States	1: 47.96 min
4th	Rolf Gysin	Switzerland	1: 48.69 min
5	Niall O'Shaughnessy	Ireland	1: 49.29 min
7th	Luis Medina	Cuba	1: 50.15 min
8th	Marcel Philippe	France	1: 50.81 min

Semifinals

Carlo Grippo, Italy

Date: July 24, 1976, from 4.35 p.m.

Run 1

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Alberto Juantorena	Cuba	1: 45.88 min
2	Ivo Van Damme	Belgium	1: 46.00 min
3	Steve Ovett	Great Britain	1: 46.14 min
4th	Sriram Singh	India	1: 46.42 min
5	James Robinson	United States	1: 46.43 min
6th	Marian Gęsicki	Poland	1: 47.06 min
7th	Thomas Wessinghage	BR Germany	1: 48.18 min
DNF	Horace Tuitt	Trinidad and Tobago

Run 2

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Rick Wohlhuter	United States	1: 46.72 min
2	Carlo Grippo	Italy	1: 46.95 min
3	Luciano Sušanj	Yugoslavia	1: 47.03 min
4th	Willi Wuelbeck	BR Germany	1: 47.18 min
5	Seymour Newman	Jamaica	1: 47.22 min
6th	Leandro Civil	Cuba	1: 47.31 min
7th	Viktor Anochin	Soviet Union	1: 47.71 min
8th	Frank Clement	Great Britain	1: 48.28 min

final

Rick Wohlhuter, USA, bronze medal winner

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Alberto Juantorena	Cuba	1: 43.50 min	WR
2	Ivo Van Damme	Belgium	1: 43.86 min
3	Rick Wohlhuter	United States	1: 44.12 min
4th	Willi Wuelbeck	BR Germany	1: 45.26 min
5	Steve Ovett	Great Britain	1: 45.44 min
6th	Luciano Sušanj	Yugoslavia	1: 45.75 min
7th	Sriram Singh	India	1: 45.77 min
8th	Carlo Grippo	Italy	1: 48.39 min

Date: July 25, 1976, 5:15 p.m.

With Mike Boit , the best 800-meter runner of the year was missing due to the Kenyan boycott. The eagerly awaited duel with Cuban Alberto Juantorena was therefore canceled. Other medal candidates were the Belgian Ivo Van Damme, the US runner Rick Wohlhuter, the European champion from 1974 , Luciano Sušanj from Yugoslavia, and vice European champion Steve Ovett from Great Britain.

The pace in the final was extremely high from the start. At first Juantorena had the top position. After 300 meters, the Indian Sriram Singh, here still clearly back, stormed more and more forward until he finally took the lead. The 400 meter split was 50.85 seconds, so fast that a new world record was within the realm of possibility. At about 500 meters Juantorena took over the lead again, the pace remained high. Wohlhuter followed the Cuban, followed by Van Damme, the gaps were close. The German Willi Wülbeck was fourth. Wohlhuter tried to attack Juantorena until the start of the home stretch, but the Cuban stayed in front and now broke away from his pursuers. He sprinted to win the Olympic gold in a new world record time. Rick Wohlhuter won bronze because he now had to let Ivo Van Damme pass, who thus won the silver medal. Behind Wohlhuter, Willi Wülbeck crossed the finish line in fourth, ahead of the British Steve Ovett and Luciano Sušanj.

Alberto Juantorena won the first Cuban gold medal in Olympic athletics.

Four days later, Juantorena also won over 400 meters and was the first athlete to achieve an Olympic double victory over 400 and 800 meters . Only at the Olympic Intermediate Games in Athens in 1906 did the US runner Paul Pilgrim achieve the same feat.

Ivo Van Damme won the first Belgian medal over 800 meters.

literature

• Ernst Huberty / Willy B. Wange, The Olympic Games Montreal Innsbruck 1976, Lingen-Verlag, Cologne 1976, p. 218f

Videos

• Momento histórico: Juantorena, doble campeón olímpico , range 0; 00 min - 2; 22 min, published on June 28, 2011 on youtube.com, accessed on December 12, 2017
• Olympics - 1976 Montreal - Track - Mens 800m - CUB Alberto Juantorena imasportsphile , published on February 19, 2016 on youtube.com, accessed on December 12, 2017

Web links

• SportsReference 800m , accessed December 12, 2017
• Montréal 1976 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 54, English / French (PDF, 23 MB), accessed on December 12, 2017

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Berlin 2009 Page 548 (Engl.) ( Memento of 29 June 2011 at the Internet Archive ), accessed on 12 December 2017
2. ↑ Montréal 1976 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 23, English / French (PDF, 23 MB), accessed on December 12, 2017
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Montréal 1976 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 54, English / French (PDF, 23 MB), accessed on December 12, 2017
4. ↑ SportsReference , accessed December 12, 2017