1980 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 5000 m (men)

sport	athletics
discipline	5000 meter run
gender	Men
Attendees	37 athletes from 23 countries
Competition location	Luzhniki Olympic Stadium
Competition phase	July 28, 1980 (preliminary round) July 30, 1980 (semi-finals) August 1, 1980 (final)
Medalist Miruts Yifter ( ETH )   Suleiman Nyambui ( TAN )   Kaarlo Maaninka ( FIN )

The men's 5000 meter run at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow was held on July 28th and 30th and August 1st, 1980 in the Luzhniki Olympic Stadium. 37 athletes took part.

The Ethiopian Miruts Yifter became Olympic champion . He won ahead of the Tanzanian Suleiman Nyambui and the Finn Kaarlo Maaninka .

Hansjörg Kunze started for the GDR and was eliminated in the semi-finals.
The Swiss Markus Ryffel and the Austrian Dietmar Millonig reached the final. Ryffel was fifth, Millonig was sixth.
Runners from 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	13: 08.4 min	Henry Rono ( Kenya )	Berkeley , USA	April 8, 1978
Olympic record	13: 20.34 min	Brendan Foster ( Great Britain )	Advance from Montreal , Canada	July 28, 1976

Conducting the competition

The athletes competed in three heats on July 28th. The six best runners and the six fastest runners reached the semi-finals on July 30th. Here each of the four best runners and the four fastest runners qualified for the final, which took place on August 1st.

Time schedule

July 28, 5:35 p.m .: Preliminaries
July 30, 6:50 p.m .: Semi-finals
August 1, 6:35 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 28, 1980, from 5:35 p.m.

Forward 1

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Miruts Yifter	Ethiopia	13: 44.4 min
2	Hansjörg Kunze	GDR	13: 44.4 min
3	Nick Rose	Great Britain	13: 44.7 min
4th	John Treacy	Ireland	13: 44.8 min
5	Alex Hagelsteens	Belgium	13: 44.9 min
6th	Alyaksandr Fjadotkin	Soviet Union	13: 45.6 min
7th	David Fitzsimons	Australia	13: 46.4 min
8th	Enrique Aquino	Mexico	13: 48.9 min
9	Gopal Saini	India	14: 06.6 min
10	Robert Chideka	Botswana	14: 47.2 min
11	Laxman Basnet	Kingdom of Nepal	16: 11.7 min
DNS	Let Virén	Finland

Forward 2

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	El Hachemi Abdenouz	Algeria	13: 42.1 min
2	Mohamed Kedir	Ethiopia	13: 42.7 min
3	Valery Abramov	Soviet Union	13: 42.9 min
4th	Emiel Puttemans	Belgium	13: 43.0 min
5	David Moorcroft	Great Britain	13: 43.0 min
6th	Jiří Sýkora	Czechoslovakia	13: 43.1 min
7th	Steve Austin	Australia	13: 43.2 min
8th	Martti Vainio	Finland	13: 45.2 min
9	Zakariah Barie	Tanzania	13: 49.9 min
10	Mick O'Shea	Ireland	14: 03.0 min
11	Bernardo Manuel	Angola	14: 51.4 min
12	Saleh El-Ali	Syria	15: 08.2 min
DNS	Ilie Floroiu	Romania

Forward 3

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Markus Ryffel	Switzerland	13: 45.0 min
2	Suleiman Nyambui	Tanzania	13: 45.4 min
3	Eamonn Coghlan	Ireland	13: 45.4 min
4th	Dietmar Millonig	Austria	13: 45.7 min
5	Yohannes Mohamed	Ethiopia	13: 45.8 min
6th	Kaarlo Maaninka	Finland	13: 45.8 min
7th	Barry Smith	Great Britain	13: 46.3 min
8th	Enn Sellik	Soviet Union	13: 52.4 min
9	Rachid Habchaoui	Algeria	13: 59.9 min
10	Zephaniah Ncube	Zimbabwe	14: 06.7 min
11	Pedro Mulomo	Mozambique	15: 11.9 min
12	Amadou Alimi	Benin	15: 44.0 min

Semifinals

Date: July 30, 1980, from 6:50 p.m.

Run 1

GDR long-distance racer Hansjörg Kunze was eliminated in the semi-finals.

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Yohannes Mohamed	Ethiopia	13: 39.4 min
2	Miruts Yifter	Ethiopia	13: 40.0 min
3	Kaarlo Maaninka	Finland	13: 40.2 min
4th	John Treacy	Ireland	13: 40.3 min
5	Nick Rose	Great Britain	13: 40.6 min
6th	Valery Abramov	Soviet Union	13: 40.7 min
7th	Zakariah Barie	Tanzania	13: 44.9 min
8th	Emiel Puttemans	Belgium	13: 50.2 min
9	David Moorcroft	Great Britain	13: 58.2 min
10	David Fitzsimons	Australia	13: 58.3 min
11	Hansjörg Kunze	GDR	14: 00.3 min
12	Enrique Aquino	Mexico	14:01.4 min

Run 2

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Mohamed Kedir	Ethiopia	13: 28.6 min
2	Eamonn Coghlan	Ireland	13: 28.8 min
3	Markus Ryffel	Switzerland	13: 29.2 min
4th	Dietmar Millonig	Austria	13: 29.4 min
5	Suleiman Nyambui	Tanzania	13:30.2 min
6th	Martti Vainio	Finland	13: 30.4 min
7th	Jiří Sýkora	Czechoslovakia	13: 31.0 min
8th	Alyaksandr Fjadotkin	Soviet Union	13: 31.9 min
9	Barry Smith	Great Britain	13: 36.7 min
10	Alex Hagelsteens	Belgium	13: 46.7 min
11	Steve Austin	Australia	13: 47.6 min
12	El Hachemi Abdenouz	Algeria	14: 15.9 min

Scene from the final race: Suleiman Nyambui (649), Miruts Yifter (191) and Kaarlo Maaninka (208)

final

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Miruts Yifter	Ethiopia	13: 21.0 min
2	Suleiman Nyambui	Tanzania	13: 21.6 min
3	Kaarlo Maaninka	Finland	13: 22.0 min
4th	Eamonn Coghlan	Ireland	13: 22.8 min
5	Markus Ryffel	Switzerland	13: 23.1 min
6th	Dietmar Millonig	Austria	13: 23.3 min
7th	John Treacy	Ireland	13: 23.7 min
8th	Alyaksandr Fjadotkin	Soviet Union	13: 24.1 min
9	Jiří Sýkora	Czechoslovakia	13: 25.0 min
10	Yohannes Mohamed	Ethiopia	13: 28.4 min
11	Martti Vainio	Finland	13: 32.1 min
12	Mohamed Kedir	Ethiopia	13: 34.2 min

Date: August 1, 6:35 p.m.

The four-time Olympic champion Lasse Virén did not compete over 5000 meters . One of the favorites was the Ethiopian Miruts Yifter, who had triumphed over 10,000 meters here in Moscow a few days earlier . Competition came from the African runners who had already shown themselves very strong over 10,000 meters, especially Yifter's compatriot Mohamed Kedir. Among the Europeans, the Finns Kaarlo Maaninka, here in Moscow second over 10,000 meters, and Martti Vainio, European champion 1978 over 10,000 meters, as well as the Swiss Markus Ryffel, vice European champion 1978 over 5000 meters, were among the other medal candidates.

Three Ethiopians had reached the final and it was expected that Kedir and Yohannes Mohamed would be pacemakers for Yifter. In the initial phase, Alyaksandr Fjadotkin, USSR, took the lead. He left it at a moderate pace. Before the 1000 meter mark, Mohamed took the lead and accelerated a little. Behind him ran Kedir, Fjadotkin and Yifter, who took the lead shortly before the end of the fifth lap. Now the three Ethiopians took turns in leadership work for a few laps. The pace was still not overly high, so the field stayed together for a long time. In the meantime Maaninka took the lead in order to make the race a little faster again, but he didn't bring any decisive change to this 5000 meter run either. With two laps to go, Maaninka was ahead of Fjadotkin, Suleiman Nyambui from Tanzania, Yifter and the Irishman Eamonn Coghlan. The entire field was still together when Fjadotkin tried again with a start, but it quickly fizzled out. The decisive increase in pace was 300 meters from the finish. Coghlan took the initiative, at the same time the kedir in front of him made room for Yifter, who also passed the Irishman on the inside and at the end of the back straight had already worked a small gap in front of Coghlan and the now stronger Nyambui. Behind them Ryffel and Maaninka fought to catch up. For a moment it looked as if Nyambui could endanger the leading Ethiopian. But Miruts Yifter went on again and became Olympic champion ahead of Suleiman Nyambui. Kaarlo Maaninka sprinted past the desperately struggling Coghlan on the home straight to the bronze medal. Markus Ryffel finished fifth behind Eamonn Coghlan.

Miruts Yifter was the first Ethiopian Olympic champion over 5000 meters .
Suleiman Nyambui won the first medal for Tanzania in this discipline.

Video

• Miruts Yifter - 5000m - 1980 Moscow Olympics , published July 25, 2016 on youtube.com, accessed December 25, 2017

Web links

• SportsReference 5000 m , accessed December 25, 2017
• Moscow 1980 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 34f, English / French (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on December 25, 2017

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Berlin 2009 Page 551 (Engl.) ( Memento of 29 June 2011 at the Internet Archive ), accessed on 25 December 2017
2. ↑ Moscow 1980 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 17, English / French (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on December 25, 2017
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Moscow 1980 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 35, English / French (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on December 25, 2017
4. ↑ SportsReference , accessed December 25, 2017