1980 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 400 m (women)

sport	athletics
discipline	400 meter run
gender	Women
Attendees	39 athletes from 22 countries
Competition location	Luzhniki Olympic Stadium
Competition phase	July 25, 1980 (preliminary round) July 27, 1980 (semi-finals) July 28, 1980 (final)
Medalists Marita Koch ( GDR )   Jarmila Kratochvilová ( TCH )   Christina Lathan ( GDR )

The women's 400-meter run at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow was held on July 25, 27 and 28, 1980 in the Luzhniki Olympic Stadium. 39 athletes took part.

Olympic champion was Marita Koch from the GDR. She won in front of the Czechoslovak Jarmila Kratochvilová and Christina Lathan from the GDR.

In addition to the medalists, Gabriele Löwe also started for the GDR. She also reached the final and was sixth there.
The Austrian Karoline Käfer failed in the preliminary round.
Runners from Switzerland 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	48.60 s	Marita Koch ( GDR )	Turin , Italy	4th August 1979
Olympic record	49.29 s	Irena Szewińska ( Poland )	Final of Montreal , Canada	July 29, 1976

Conducting the competition

The athletes competed in five heats on July 25th. The three best runners as well as the following fastest made it to the semi-finals on July 27th. Here, the four top runners qualified for the final, which took place on July 28th.

Time schedule

July 25, 7.45 p.m .: Preliminaries
July 27, 7.15 p.m .: Semi-finals
July 28, 8.20 p.m .: Final

Remarks:

• All times are local time Moscow ( UTC + 3 )
• An additional run on July 24th at 12.50 p.m. is incorrectly stated on the time table of the Official Report. In addition, the semi-finals for July 26th will be shown, which is also incorrect. The additional run is missing in both the SportsReference database and the list of results in the Official Report, and the correct date for the semifinals is given as July 27th.

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

Preliminary round

Date: July 25, 1980, from 7.45 p.m.

Forward 1

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Christina Lathan	GDR	51.33 s
2	Ilona Pál	Hungary	51.99 s
3	Michelle Probert	Great Britain	52.16 s
4th	Svobodka Damjanowa	Bulgaria	52.23 s
5	Niculina Lazarciuc	Romania	52.52 s
6th	Ann-Louise Skoglund	Sweden	52.78 s
7th	Kehinde Vaughan	Nigeria	53.54 s
8th	Eugenia Osho-Williams	Sierra Leone	1: 00.44 min

Forward 2

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Nina Syuskova	Soviet Union	51.42 s
2	Linsey Macdonald	Great Britain	52.57 s
3	Rositsa Stamenova	Bulgaria	52.71 s
4th	Maria Samungi	Romania	52.89 s
5	Sophie Malbranque	France	53.46 s
6th	Hala El-Moughrabi	Syria	59.33 s
7th	Xiomara Larios	Nicaragua	1: 01.50 min
DNS	Rita Battiglieri	Italy

Forward 3

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Irina Nazarova	Soviet Union	51.66 s
2	Pirjo Haggman	Finland	52.56 s
3	Irena Szewińska	Poland	52.57 s
4th	Karoline Beetle	Austria	52.82 s
5	Erica Rossi	Italy	52.98 s
6th	Judit Forgács	Hungary	53.06 s
7th	Marième Boye	Senegal	55.16 s

Forward 4

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Joslyn Hoyte-Smith	Great Britain	52.24 s
2	Gabriele Lion	GDR	52.43 s
3	Grażyna Oliszewska	Poland	52.62 s
4th	Mary Akinyemi	Nigeria	52.64 s
5	Elena Tărîţă	Romania	52.96 s
6th	Malena Andonova	Bulgaria	53.30 s
7th	Anne Michel	Belgium	54.22 s
8th	Acacia Mate	Mozambique	1: 00.90 min

Forward 5

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Jarmila Kratochvilová	Czechoslovakia	51.04 s
2	Marita Koch	GDR	51.06 s
3	Lyudmila Chernova	Soviet Union	51.51 s
4th	Małgorzata Dunecka	Poland	51.81 s
5	Raisin Wallez	Belgium	52.00 s
6th	Gloria Ayanlaja	Nigeria	53.55 s
7th	Ruth Williams-Simpson	Jamaica	55.59 s
8th	Trần Thị Ngọc Anh	Vietnam	1: 00.62 min

Semifinals

Bronze medalist Christina Lathan, GDR, on an autograph card from 1980

Date: July 27, 1980, from 7.15 p.m.

Run 1

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Marita Koch	GDR	50.57 s
2	Gabriele Lion	GDR	50.85 s
3	Pirjo Haggman	Finland	51.02 s
4th	Nina Syuskova	Soviet Union	51.12 s
5	Lyudmila Chernova	Soviet Union	51.30 s
6th	Joslyn Hoyte-Smith	Great Britain	51.47 s
7th	Małgorzata Dunecka	Poland	51.93 s
8th	Rositsa Stamenova	Bulgaria	52.96 s

Run 2

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Christina Lathan	GDR	50.16 s
2	Irina Nazarova	Soviet Union	50.18 s
3	Jarmila Kratochvilová	Czechoslovakia	50.79 s
4th	Linsey Macdonald	Great Britain	51.60 s
5	Michelle Probert	Great Britain	51.89 s
6th	Ilona Pál	Hungary	51.99 s
7th	Grażyna Oliszewska	Poland	52.36 s
8th	Irena Szewińska	Poland	53.13 s

Olympic champion Marita Koch, GDR

final

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Marita Koch	GDR	48.88 s	OR
2	Jarmila Kratochvílová	Czechoslovakia	49.46 s
3	Christina Lathan	GDR	49.66 s
4th	Irina Nazarova	Soviet Union	50.07 s
5	Nina Syuskova	Soviet Union	50.17 s
6th	Gabriele Lion	GDR	51.33 s
7th	Pirjo Haggman	Finland	51.35 s
8th	Linsey Macdonald	Great Britain	52.40 s

Date: July 28, 1980, 8:20 p.m.

Because of the Olympic boycott, the Americans were not there. However, they were not counted among the medal candidates either. These were the runners from the Soviet Union and the GDR. The clear favorite was Marita Koch, the world record holder and European champion from 1978 . The 1976 Olympic champion , Irena Szewińska from Poland, was eliminated in the semifinals on her fifth participation in the Olympics.

In the final race, Koch set a high pace right from the start. The Czechoslovak Jarmila Kratochvílová was also very fast on the first three hundred meters and was not far behind in second place at the start of the home straight. She was followed almost equally by Irina Nasarowa, USSR, and Christina Lathan, who became Vice European Champion in 1978 under her name Christina Brehmer . In the last hundred meters, Marita Koch showed her strength to the full, increased the distance to her opponents and became an Olympic champion. In doing so, she improved the Olympic record to a value of less than 49 seconds for the first time. Jarmila Kratochvílová had to fight hard for the silver medal in the end, but held her place against the strong emerging Christina Lathan, for whom it was enough to bronze. Irina Nasarowa and her compatriot Nina Sjuskowa took the next place. For the first time a race was ended in which the first three women stayed under 50 seconds.

Jarmila Kratochvilová won the first Czechoslovak medal in this discipline.

Web links

• SportsReference 400m , accessed January 1, 2018
• Moscow 1980 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 74f, English / French (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on January 1, 2018

Video

• 1980 Moscow Olympic Games Athletics , range 15:45 min - 17:05 min, published on June 21, 2015 on youtube.com, accessed on January 1, 2018

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Berlin 2009 Page 641 (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} SportsReference , accessed on January 1, 2018
4. ↑ ^{a b c d} Moscow 1980 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 75, English / French (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on January 1, 2018