1980 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 400 m hurdles (men)

sport	athletics
discipline	400 meter hurdles
gender	Men
Attendees	23 athletes from 20 countries
Competition location	Luzhniki Olympic Stadium
Competition phase	July 24, 1980 (preliminary round) July 25, 1980 (semi-finals) July 26, 1980 (final)
Medalist Volker Beck ( GDR )   Wassyl Archypenko ( URS )   Gary Oakes ( GBR )

The men's 400-meter hurdles at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow took place on July 24, 25 and 26, 1980 in the Luzhniki Olympic Stadium. 23 athletes took part.

Olympic champion was Volker Beck from the GDR. He won ahead of Wassyl Archypenko from the Soviet Union and the British Gary Oakes .

The Swiss Franz Meier reached the final and finished seventh there.
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	47.13 s	Edwin Moses ( USA )	Milan , Italy	3rd July 1980
Olympic record	47.63 s		Final of Montreal , Canada	July 25, 1976

Conducting the competition

The athletes competed in three heats on July 24th. The four best runners and the four fastest runners reached the semifinals on July 25th. Here the three best runners and the two fastest runners qualified for the final, which took place on July 26th.

Time schedule

July 24th, 10.15 a.m.: Preliminaries

July 25, 5:10 p.m .: semi-finals

July 26, 7:55 p.m .: 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 24, 1980, from 10.15 a.m.

Forward 1

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Mykola Vasyliev	Soviet Union	50.09 s
2	Antônio Dias Ferreira	Brazil	50.14 s
3	Volker Beck	GDR	50.35 s
4th	Ryszard Szparak	Poland	50.45 s
5	John Akii-Bua	Uganda	50.87 s
6th	Horia Toboc	Romania	50.89 s
7th	Davison Lishebo	Zambia	51.73 s

Forward 2

Harry Schulting from the Netherlands

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Harry Schulting	Netherlands	50.01 s
2	József Szalai	Hungary	50.23 s
3	Gary Oakes	Great Britain	50.39 s
4th	Alexander Charlow	Soviet Union	50.79 s
5	José Casabona	Spain	51.26 s
DNF	Wilfred Kareng	Botswana
	Leonel Teller	Nicaragua
DNS	Hassan Kadhim	Iraq

Forward 3

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Wassyl Archypenko	Soviet Union	50.22 s
2	Franz Meier	Switzerland	50.32 s
3	Rok Kopitar	Yugoslavia	50.34 s
4th	Juan Lloveras	Spain	50.48 s
5	Janko Bratanow	Bulgaria	50.56 s
6th	Christer Gullstrand	Sweden	50.95 s
7th	Amer Maaraoui	Syria	53.26 s
8th	Abdul Latif Abbas	Kuwait	53.31 s

Semifinals

Date: July 25, 1980, from 5:10 p.m.

Run 1

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Volker Beck	GDR	50.36 s
2	Rok Kopitar	Yugoslavia	50.55 s
3	Horia Toboc	Romania	50.58 s
4th	Harry Schulting	Netherlands	50.61 s
5	Alexander Charlow	Soviet Union	50.64 s
6th	József Szalai	Hungary	51.06 s
7th	Antônio Dias Ferreira	Brazil	52.31 s
DNS	Christer Gullstrand	Sweden

Run 2

Olympic champion Volker Beck from the GDR

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Wassyl Archypenko	Soviet Union	49.80 s
2	Mykola Vasyliev	Soviet Union	49.87 s
3	Gary Oakes	Great Britain	50.07 s
4th	Franz Meier	Switzerland	50.12 s
5	Janko Bratanow	Bulgaria	50.17 s
6th	Ryszard Szparak	Poland	50.41 s
7th	John Akii-Bua	Uganda	51.10 s
8th	Juan Lloveras	Spain	51.86 s

final

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Volker Beck	GDR	48.70 s
2	Wassyl Archypenko	Soviet Union	48.86 s
3	Gary Oakes	Great Britain	49.11 s
4th	Mykola Vasyliev	Soviet Union	49.34 s
5	Rok Kopitar	Yugoslavia	49.67 s
6th	Horia Toboc	Romania	49.84 s
7th	Franz Meier	Switzerland	50.00 s
8th	Janko Bratanow	Bulgaria	56.35 s

Date: July 26, 1980, 7:55 p.m.

The absence of the US hurdlers, in particular the world record holder and Olympic champion from 1976 , Edwin Moses , and the European champion from 1978 Harald Schmid from the Federal Republic of Germany reduced this competition enormously. The medal candidates mainly included Wassyl Archypenko from the USSR, who was third in the 1978 European Championship , and Volker Beck from the GDR.

The final race was pretty even over the first 200 meters. Out of the target curve, three runners had a lead with very narrow gaps between themselves: Archypenko, Beck and the Briton Gary Oakes. Now Archypenko initially sat a little apart and looked almost like the winner. But after crossing the last hurdle, Volker Beck freed up his energy again and pulled past the Soviet runner to win the Olympic gold. Wassyl Archypenko won the silver medal. From behind, Mykola Wassyljew from the USSR came closer to the top three, but Gary Oakes brought home bronze. The slowest win time since 1964 was 48.70 seconds .

Volker Beck achieved the GDR's first Olympic victory over the 400 meter hurdles .

Video

• 400m hurdles final olympic games 1980 in moscow , published on December 26, 2012 on youtube.com, accessed on December 27, 2017

Web links

• SportsReference 400m hurdles , accessed December 27, 2017
• Moscow 1980 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 46f, English / French (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on December 27, 2017

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Berlin 2009 Page 554 (Engl.) ( Memento of 29 June 2011 at the Internet Archive ), accessed on December 27, 2017
2. ↑ Moscow 1980 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 17, English / French (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on December 27, 2017
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Moscow 1980 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 47, English / French (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on December 27, 2017
4. ↑ SportsReference , accessed December 27, 2017