1980 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 800 m (men)

sport	athletics
discipline	800 meter run
gender	Men
Attendees	41 athletes from 28 countries
Competition location	Luzhniki Olympic Stadium
Competition phase	July 24, 1980 (preliminary round) July 25, 1980 (semi-finals) July 26, 1980 (final)
Medalist Steve Ovett ( GBR )   Sebastian Coe ( GBR )   Mikalaj Kirau ( URS )

The men's 800-meter run at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow was held on July 24, 25 and 26, 1980 in the Luzhniki Olympic Stadium. 41 athletes took part.

The British Steve Ovett was the Olympic champion . He won ahead of his compatriot Sebastian Coe and Mikalaj Kirau from the Soviet Union.

Olaf Beyer , Andreas Busse and Detlef Wagenknecht started for the GDR . Beyer was eliminated in the semifinals. In the final, Busse and Wagenknecht finished fifth and sixth respectively. Runners from Switzerland, 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	1: 42.33 min	Sebastian Coe ( Great Britain )	Oslo , Norway	5th July 1979
Olympic record	1: 43.50 min	Alberto Juantorena ( Cuba )	Final of Montreal , Canada	July 25, 1976

Conducting the competition

The athletes competed in a total of six heats on July 24th. The three best runners and the six fastest runners reached the semi-finals on July 25th. In each of the three semi-finals, the two best runners and the two fastest runners qualified for the final, which took place on July 24th.

Time schedule

July 24, 7:25 p.m .: Preliminaries
July 25, 6:15 p.m .: Semi-finals
July 26, 7:25 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 7:25 p.m.

Forward 1

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Steve Ovett	Great Britain	1: 49.4 min
2	Antonio Páez	Spain	1: 49.5 min
3	Philippe Dupont	France	1: 49.6 min
4th	Sriram Singh	India	1: 49.8 min
5	Abebe Zerihun	Ethiopia	1: 50.3 min
6th	Langa Mudongo	Botswana	1: 52.5 min
7th	Kenneth Hlasa	Lesotho	1: 56.1 min

Forward 2

Detlef Wagenknecht, GDR, came in sixth in the final

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Detlef Wagenknecht	GDR	1: 47.5 min
2	Mikalaj Kirau	Soviet Union	1: 47.5 min
3	András Paróczai	Hungary	1: 47.5 min
4th	Colomán Trabado	Spain	1: 47.9 min
5	Musa Luliga	Tanzania	1: 49.6 min
6th	Jón Didriksson	Iceland	1: 51.1 min
7th	George branch	Sierra Leone	1: 54.6 min

Forward 3

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Andreas Busse	GDR	1: 47.4 min
2	Anatoly Reshetnyak	Soviet Union	1: 47.9 min
3	Agberto Guimarães	Brazil	1: 48.2 min
4th	William Wuycke	Venezuela	1: 48.5 min
5	Derradji Harek	Algeria	1: 49.9 min
6th	Tisbite Rakotoarisoa	Madagascar	1: 50.5 min
7th	Khaled Hussain	Kuwait	1: 54.6 min

Forward 4

Scene from pre-run 4 shortly after the start (from left to right): Mohamed Makhlouf, Sebastian Coe, Archfell Musango, Jimmy Massallay

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Sebastian Coe	Great Britain	1: 48.5 min
2	Roger Milhau	France	1: 48.5 min
3	Binko Kolew	Bulgaria	1: 48.7 min
4th	Carlo Grippo	Italy	1: 48.9 min
5	Archfell Musango	Zambia	1: 51.6 min
6th	Mohamed Makhlouf	Syria	1: 52.3 min
7th	Jimmy Massallay	Sierra Leone	2: 04.4 min

Forward 5

European champion Olaf Beyer, GDR, was eliminated in the semi-finals

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Olaf Beyer	GDR	1: 48.9 min
2	Milovan Savic	Yugoslavia	1: 49.2 min
3	Owen Hamilton	Jamaica	1: 49.3 min
4th	Salem El-Margini	Libya	1: 50.0 min
5	Atre Bezabeh	Ethiopia	1: 52.7 min
6th	Adam Assimi	Benin	1: 59.9 min

Forward 6

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	José Marajo	France	1: 49.6 min
2	David Warren	Great Britain	1: 49.9 min
3	Mehdi Aidet	Algeria	1: 50.4 min
4th	Nigusse Bekele	Ethiopia	1: 51.1 min
5	Sekou Camara	Guinea	1: 58.9 min
6th	Vongdeuane Phongsavanh	Laos	2: 05.5 min
7th	Sahr Kendor	Sierra Leone	2: 06.5 min

Semifinals

Date: July 25, 1980, from 6.15 p.m.

Run 1

The Italian Carlo Grippo made it to the semi-finals and then retired

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Steve Ovett	Great Britain	1: 46.6 min
2	Andreas Busse	GDR	1: 46.9 min
3	Agberto Guimarães	Brazil	1: 46.9 min
4th	Owen Hamilton	Jamaica	1: 47.6 min
5	Milovan Savic	Yugoslavia	1: 47.6 min
6th	Roger Milhau	France	1: 48.1 min
7th	Colomán Trabado	Spain	1: 48.1 min
8th	Mehdi Aidet	Algeria	1: 48.2 min

Run 2

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Sebastian Coe	Great Britain	1: 46.7 min
2	Detlef Wagenknecht	GDR	1: 46.7 min
3	Binko Kolew	Bulgaria	1: 47.3 min
4th	William Wuycke	Venezuela	1: 47.4 min
5	Anatoly Reshetnyak	Soviet Union	1: 48.2 min
6th	Philippe Dupont	France	1: 49.7 min
7th	Musa Luliga	Tanzania	1: 51.5 min
8th	Derradji Harrek	Algeria	1: 51.9 min

Run 3

Olympic Champion Steve Ovett from Great Britain

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Mikalaj Kirau	Soviet Union	1: 46.6 min
2	David Warren	Great Britain	1: 47.2 min
3	José Marajo	France	1: 47.3 min
4th	Olaf Beyer	GDR	1: 47.6 min
5	Antonio Páez	Spain	1: 47.8 min
6th	Carlo Grippo	Italy	1: 48.7 min
7th	András Paróczai	Hungary	1: 48.8 min
8th	Sriram Singh	India	1: 49.0 min

final

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Steve Ovett	Great Britain	1: 45.4 min
2	Sebastian Coe	Great Britain	1: 45.9 min
3	Mikalaj Kirau	Soviet Union	1: 46.0 min
4th	Agberto Guimarães	Brazil	1: 46.2 min
5	Andreas Busse	GDR	1: 46.9 min
6th	Detlef Wagenknecht	GDR	1: 47.0 min
7th	José Marajo	France	1: 47.3 min
8th	David Warren	Great Britain	1: 49.3 min

Date: July 26, 1980, 7:25 p.m.

The men's middle-distance races were awaited with great excitement . The two best middle distance athletes of their time, the British Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett, would meet here. Up until the games in Moscow , they had avoided each other at the major international athletics events by starting on different track lengths. Here, however, Coe and Ovett had reported for both the 800 and 1500 meter run . They were the clear favorites on both tracks. For the shorter middle distance, which was held here first, the experts saw Coe as the favorites, for the longer ones Ovett. Another candidate for a medal for the 800 meter run was Olaf Beyer, who had become European champion in 1978 with an excellent time and even left Ovett and Coe behind. But Beyer was surprisingly eliminated in the semi-finals. Otherwise the American Don Paige was absent because of his country's Olympic boycott .

The final race started rather leisurely. The Brazilian Agberto Guimarães led the packed field through the first lap. The intermediate time at 400 meters was 54.55 seconds. There was a considerable increase in tempo here. David Warren, who had been second up until then, took the initiative and took the lead. Coe ran at the end of the field and missed the connection for a brief moment. Then the Soviet athlete Mikalaj Kirau went in front and kept the pace high. The field grew significantly apart. In the final corner only Ovett had a direct connection to Kirau. Coe had to go a long way from behind to get close again. At the beginning of the home stretch Kirau continued ahead of Ovett, Guimarães and Coe. There was already a gap behind it. Ovett easily passed Kirau in the last 80 meters. Coe's gap to the front was too big, he couldn't endanger his compatriot anymore. Steve Ovett was Olympic champion ahead of Sebastian Coe, who ran past Guimarães and Kirau to the silver medal with a strong finish. Mikalaj Kirau saved bronze in front of Agberto Guimarães.

After the slow first lap, top times were no longer possible. But the front runners had mastered the second half of the course in a very fast 51 seconds.

Video

• 1980 Olympics in Moscow the 800m final - winner Steve Ovett , published August 16, 2016 on youtube.com, accessed December 24, 2017

Web links

• SportsReference 800m , accessed December 24, 2017
• Moscow 1980 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 30f, English / French (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on December 24, 2017

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Berlin 2009 Page 548 (Engl.) ( Memento of 29 June 2011 at the Internet Archive ), accessed on 24 December 2017
2. ↑ Moscow 1980 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 17, English / French (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on December 24, 2017
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Moscow 1980 Official Report, Volume III, Results , p. 31, English / French (PDF, 28 MB), accessed on December 24, 2017
4. ↑ SportsReference , accessed December 24, 2017