1988 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 1500 m (women)

sport	athletics
discipline	1500 meter run
gender	Women
Attendees	28 athletes from 19 countries
Competition location	Seoul Olympic Stadium
Competition phase	September 29, 1988 (preliminary round) October 1, 1988 (final)
Medalists Paula Ivan ( ROM )   Laimutė Baikauskaitė ( URS )   Tetjana Samolenko ( URS )

The women's 1,500-meter run at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul was held in two rounds on September 29 and October 1, 1988 in the Seoul Olympic Stadium. 28 athletes took part.

The Romanian Paula Ivan became Olympic champion . She won ahead of the two Soviet athletes Laimutė Baikauskaitė and Tetjana Samolenko .

Vera Michallek took part for the Federal Republic of Germany, who was eliminated in the preliminary round.
The GDR was represented by Andrea Hahmann . She reached the final and was sixth.
The Swiss Cornelia Bürki failed in the preliminary round.
Runners from Austria and Liechtenstein did not take part.

Current titleholders

Olympic champion 1984	Gabriella Dorio ( Italy )	4: 03.25 min	Los Angeles 1984
World Champion 1987	Tetjana Samolenko ( Soviet Union )	3: 58.56 min	Rome 1987
European champion 1986	Rawilja Agletdinova ( Soviet Union )	4: 01.19 min	Stuttgart 1986
Pan American Champion 1987	Linda Sheskey ( USA )	4: 07.84 min	Indianapolis 1987
Central America and Caribbean Champion 1987	Milagro Rodríguez ( Cuba )	4: 29.34 min	Caracas 1987
South American Champion 1987	Soraya Telles ( Brazil )	4: 29.9 min	São Paulo 1987
Asian champion 1987	Yang Liuxia ( People's Republic of China )	4: 19.29 min	Singapore 1987
African champion in 1988	Hassiba Boulmerka ( Algeria )	4: 12.14 min	Annaba 1988

Existing records

World record	3: 52.47 min	Tatjana Kasankina ( Soviet Union )	Zurich , Switzerland	August 13, 1980
Olympic record	3: 55.0 min		Final of Moscow , Soviet Union (today Russia )	July 6, 1980

Preliminary round

Date: September 29, 1988

The athletes competed in a total of two preliminary runs. The first four athletes of each run qualified for the final. In addition, the four fastest times, the so-called lucky losers , made it through. The directly qualified athletes are highlighted in light blue, the lucky losers in light green.

Forward 1

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Doina Melinte	Romania	4: 06.87 min
2	Debbie Bowker	Canada	4: 07.06 min
3	Tetiana Samolenko	Soviet Union	4: 07.11 min
4th	Kim Gallagher	United States	4: 07.22 min
5	Elly van Hulst	Netherlands	4: 07.40 min
6th	Kirsty Wade	Great Britain	4: 08.37 min
7th	Lyubov Gurina	Soviet Union	4: 08.59 min
8th	Angela Chalmers	Canada	4: 08.64 min
9	Vera Michallek	BR Germany	4: 10.05 min
10	Cornelia Bürki	Switzerland	4: 10.89 min
11	Khin Khin Htwe	Burma	4: 20.92 min
12	No Hye-sun	South Korea	4: 26.05 min
13	Daphrose Nyiramutuzo	Rwanda	4: 32.31 min
14th	Poloni Avek	Papua New Guinea	4: 46.49 min

Forward 2

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Paula Ivan	Romania	4: 03.33 min
2	Mary Slaney	United States	4: 03.61 min
3	Andrea Hahmann	GDR	4: 03.65 min
4th	Lynn Williams	Canada	4: 04.20 min
5	Shireen Bailey	Great Britain	4: 04.65 min
6th	Christina Cahill	Great Britain	4: 05.33 min
7th	Laimutė Baikauskaitė	Soviet Union	4: 05.74 min
8th	Fatima Aouam	Morocco	4: 06.87 min
9	Hassiba Boulmerka	Algeria	4: 08.33 min
10	Susan Sirma	Kenya	4: 10.13 min
11	Regina Jacobs	United States	4: 18.09 min
12	Letitia Vriesde	Suriname	4: 19.58 min
13	Laverne Bryan	Antigua and Barbuda	4: 39.73 min
14th	Rachel Thompson	Sierra Leone	5: 31.42 min

final

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Paula Ivan	Romania	3: 53.96 min	OR
2	Laimutė Baikauskaitė	Soviet Union	4: 00.24 min
3	Tetiana Samolenko	Soviet Union	4: 00.30 min
4th	Christina Cahill	Great Britain	4: 00.64 min
5	Lynn Williams	Canada	4: 00.86 min
6th	Andrea Hahmann	GDR	4:00, 96 min
7th	Shireen Bailey	Great Britain	4: 02.32 min
8th	Mary Slaney	United States	4: 02.49 min
9	Doina Melinte	Romania	4: 02.89 min
10	Fatima Aouam	Morocco	4: 08.00 min
11	Kim Gallagher	United States	4: 16.25 min
12	Debbie Bowker	Canada	4: 17.95 min

Date: October 1, 1988

Two runners from the Soviet Union, Romania, Canada, the United States and Great Britain each qualified for the final on October 1st. The starting field was completed with one athlete each from the GDR and Morocco.

The favorites were the Soviet world champion Tetjana Samolenko, who had already won the 3,000-meter run here in Seoul , and the American Mary Slaney, the world champion from 1983 , who at the time had won under her maiden name Mary Decker and who won the Game in Los Angeles was unhappy due to a fall. Another medal candidate was the 1984 silver medalist Doina Melinte from Romania, who was third in the European Championship in 1986 and third in the World Cup in 1987.

In the final, Romanian Paula Ivan took the lead right from the start and set a high pace. She ran the first lap in 1: 02.52 minutes. After 600 meters a gap opened up between Ivan and the rest of the field, which got bigger and bigger. After two laps, Ivan had run out of eight meters. Her pace remained high, the 800-meter split was 2: 05.78 minutes. Meanwhile, the gap between the Romanian and the pursuers grew bigger and bigger. When it came to the final lap, Melinte was in second place, while Slaney fell behind. The 1200-meter split was 3: 08.24 minutes, Ivan kept her steady high pace even now. Andrea Hahmann, GDR, had moved up to second place, while Samolenko was third in front of the British Christina Cahill. Paula Ivan didn't let anything burn for the last two hundred meters. She continued to pull through and became Olympic champion with a lead of forty meters and a new Olympic record . In the fight for the other medals, the Soviet runner Laimutė Baikauskaitė was able to free most of her strength on the home straight and sprinted silver ahead of Tetjana Samolenko, who won bronze. Christina Cahill finished fourth ahead of Canadians Lynn Williams and Andrea Hahmann. Never before had a 1,500-meter runner won an Olympic gold medal by more than six seconds.

Paula Ivan won Romania's first Olympic victory over 1500 meters for women.

Web links

• SportsReference 1500 m , accessed January 30, 2018
• Official report on the Olympic Games in Seoul Volume two, part two , Athletics results: p. 257, English / French (PDF, 25.64 MB), accessed on January 30, 2018

Video

• Women's 1500m Final at Seoul Olympics 1988 , published July 29, 2015 on youtube.com, accessed January 30, 2018

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Beijing 2015, page 795 , accessed on January 30, 2018
2. ↑ ^{a b} Official report on the Olympic Games in Seoul Volume two, part two , Athletics results: p. 257, English / French (PDF, 25.64 MB), accessed on January 30, 2018