1980 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 1500 m (women)

sport	athletics
discipline	1500 meter run
gender	Women
Attendees	26 athletes from 16 countries
Competition location	Luzhniki Olympic Stadium
Competition phase	July 30, 1980 (preliminary round) August 1, 1980 (final)
Medalists Tatjana Kasankina ( URS )   Christiane Wartenberg ( GDR )   Nadija Olisarenko ( URS )

The women's 1,500-meter run at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow was held on July 30th and August 1st, 1980 in the Luzhniki Olympic Stadium. 26 athletes took part.

The Olympic champion was the 1976 Olympic champion Tatjana Kasankina from the Soviet Union. She won ahead of GDR runner Christiane Wartenberg and Nadija Olisarenko , like Kasankina from the Soviet Union.

In addition to the medalist Wartenberg, Ulrike Bruns and Beate Liebich also competed for the GDR . Liebich was eliminated in the preliminary round, Bruns reached the final and was fifth.
The Swiss Cornelia Bürki was eliminated in the preliminary round.
Runners from Austria and Liechtenstein did not take part. Athletes from the Federal Republic of Germany were also not there because of the Olympic boycott.

Existing records

World record	3: 55.0 min	Tatjana Kasankina ( Soviet Union )	Moscow , Soviet Union (now Russia )	July 6, 1980
Olympic record	4: 01.4 min	Lyudmila Bragina ( Soviet Union )	Final of Munich , FR Germany (today Germany )	September 9, 1972

Conducting the competition

The athletes competed in two preliminary runs on July 30th. The four best runners and the fastest fastest qualified for the final, which took place on August 1st.

Time schedule

July 30, 7:55 p.m .: Prelim

August 1st, 6:05 pm: Final

Note: All times are local time Moscow ( UTC + 3 )

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

Preliminary round

Date: July 30, 1980, from 7:55 p.m.

Forward 1

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Tatiana Kasankina	Soviet Union	3: 59.2 min	OR
2	Nadia Olisarenko	Soviet Union	3: 59.5 min
3	Christiane Wartenberg	GDR	4: 00.4 min
4th	Ulrike Bruns	GDR	4: 01.6 min
5	Maricica Puică	Romania	4: 01.7 min
6th	Wesela Jatsinska	Bulgaria	4: 04.7 min
7th	Cornelia Bürki	Switzerland	4: 05.5 min
8th	Totka Petrova	Bulgaria	4: 13.8 min
9	Janet Marlow	Great Britain	4: 15.9 min
10	Amsale Woldegibriel	Ethiopia	4: 25.3 min
11	Marcellina Emmanuel	Italy	4: 26.8 min
12	Albertine Rahéliarisoa	Madagascar	4: 30.8 min
13	Margaret Morel	Seychelles	4: 37.9 min

Forward 2

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Lyubov Smolka	Soviet Union	4: 04.4 min
2	Ileana Silai	Romania	4: 04.7 min
3	Gabriella Dorio	Italy	4: 05.0 min
4th	Natalia Mărăşescu	Romania	4: 05.9 min
5	Anna Bukis	Poland	4: 06.0 min
6th	Beate Liebich	GDR	4: 06.8 min
7th	Nikolina Shtereva	Bulgaria	4: 08.3 min
8th	Breda Pergar	Yugoslavia	4: 13.2 min
9	Agnese Possamai	Italy	4: 14.7 min
10	Mwinga Mwanjala	Tanzania	4: 20.9 min
11	Trịnh Thị Bé	Vietnam	4: 38.6 min
DNS	Hala El-Moughrabi	Syria
	Geeta Zutshi	India

Ulrike Bruns, GDR, was fifth in the Olympics

final

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Tatiana Kasankina	Soviet Union	3: 56.6 min	OR
2	Christiane Wartenberg	GDR	3: 57.8 min
3	Nadia Olisarenko	Soviet Union	3: 59.6 min
4th	Gabriella Dorio	Italy	4:00, 3 min
5	Ulrike Bruns	GDR	4: 00.7 min
6th	Lyubov Smolka	Soviet Union	4: 01.3 min
7th	Maricica Puică	Romania	4: 01.3 min
8th	Ileana Silai	Romania	4: 03.0 min
9	Natalia Mărăşescu	Romania	4: 04.8 min

Date: August 1, 1980, 6:05 p.m.

The clear favorite was the 1976 Olympic champion and world record holder Tatjana Kasankina, who was the first runner to stay below the 4-minute mark in the preliminary round at the Olympic Games. Nadija Olisarenko, who had previously won the 800-meter run here, was seen as one of her strongest opponents . Other medal contenders included the 1978 vice European champion Natalia Mărăşescu from Romania, who had already undercut the four minutes, the Bulgarian Totka Petrowa, who was third in the 1978 European Championship , and Christiane Wartenberg from the GDR.

In the final race, the pace was initially not high, the field stayed together for a long time. The passage times were 1: 05.59 min after 400 meters and 2: 13.59 min after 800 meters. The two Soviet athletes Olisarenko and Lyubow Smolka were consistently in the lead. With a lap and a half to go, Kasankina accelerated the pace with a determined start. Immediately the field spread apart and Kasankina gradually gained a clear advantage that grew bigger and bigger. Olisarenko fell back and lost many places, and Smolka could no longer follow her compatriot at the beginning of the final round. The 1200 meter intermediate time was 3: 12.51 minutes, so the lap between 800 and 1200 meters was run in less than 60 seconds. Smolka slacked off significantly and Wartenberg passed her. Tatjana Kasankina ran at the top with a clear lead to Olympic victory, Christiane Wartenberg also clearly ahead of everyone else to the silver medal. In the finish curve, Olisarenko, who had previously seemed to have been beaten, came a long way forward and sprinted the bronze medal ahead of the Italian Gabriella Dorio and Ulrike Bruns from the GDR. With her winning time, Tatjana Kasankina undercut her Olympic record set in the preliminary run by 2.6 seconds. The other two medal winners also stayed under four minutes.

Web links

• SportsReference 1500 m ,
• Moscow 1980 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 78f, English / French (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on January 1, 2018

Video

• 1980 Moscow Olympic Games Women's 1500 , published May 1, 2015 on youtube.com, accessed January 1, 2018

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Berlin 2009 Page 642 (Engl.) ( Memento of 29 June 2011 at the Internet Archive ), accessed on January 1, 2018
2. ↑ Moscow 1980 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 17, English / French (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on January 1, 2018
3. ↑ ^{a b} Moscow 1980 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 79, English / French (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on January 1, 2018
4. ↑ SportsReference , accessed January 1, 2018