1996 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 400 m (men)

sport	athletics
discipline	400 meter run
gender	Men
Attendees	62 athletes from 42 countries
Competition location	Centennial Olympic Stadium
Competition phase	July 26, 1996 (preliminary round) July 27, 1996 (quarter-finals) July 28, 1996 (semi-finals) July 29, 1996 (final)
Medalist Michael Johnson ( USA )   Roger Black ( GBR )   Davis Kamoga ( UGA )

The men's 400-meter run at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta was held on July 26, 27, 28 and 29, 1996 at the Centennial Olympic Stadium . 62 athletes took part.

The American Michael Johnson became Olympic champion . He won ahead of Roger Black from Great Britain and Davis Kamoga from Uganda.

Laurent Clerc and Mathias Rusterholz competed for Switzerland . Clerc was eliminated in the preliminary round, Rusterholz in the quarter-finals.
Athletes from Germany, Austria and Liechtenstein did not take part.

Current title holders

Olympic champion 1992	Quincy Watts ( USA )	43.50 s	Barcelona 1992
World Champion 1995	Michael Johnson ( USA )	43.39 s	Gothenburg 1995
European Champion 1994	Du'aine Ladejo ( Great Britain )	45.09 s	Helsinki 1994
Pan American champion 1995	Norberto Téllez ( Cuba )	45.38 s	Mar del Plata 1995
Central America and Caribbean champions 1995	Eswort Coombs ( St. Vincent and the Grenadines )	45.29 s	Guatemala City 1995
South American Champion 1995	Sanderlei Parrela ( Brazil )	45.74 s	Manaus 1995
Asian champion 1995	Ibrahim Ismail Muftah ( Qatar )	44.96 s	Jakarta 1995
African champion 1996	Ibrahima Wade ( Senegal )	45.75 s	Yaoundé 1996
Oceania Champion 1994	Mark Wilson ( New Zealand )	47.25 s	Auckland 1994

Existing records

World record	43.29 s	Harry Reynolds ( USA )	Zurich , Switzerland	17th August 1988
Olympic record	43.50 s	Quincy Watts ( USA )	Final of Barcelona , Spain	5th August 1992

Preliminary round

Date: July 26, 1996

The athletes competed in a total of eight heats. The first three athletes per run qualified for the quarter-finals. In addition, the eight fastest drivers, 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	Roger Black	Great Britain	45.28 s
2	Neil de Silva	Trinidad and Tobago	45.34 s
3	Štefan Balošák	Slovakia	45.86 s
4th	Jew Monye	Nigeria	46.10 s
5	Michael Joubert	Australia	46.30 s
6th	Kossi Akoto	Togo	46.94 s
DSQ	Amar Hecini	Algeria
	Moustafa Abdel Naser	Libya

Forward 2

The Pole Piotr Rysiukiewicz reached the quarter-finals and was eliminated there in eighth of his run

Hassan Abdou, along with his teammates Mohamed Bakar and Ahamada Haoulata, was one of the first Comoros to take part in the Olympic Games.

Ivan Jean-Marie and his teammate Michelle Baptiste were the first St. Lucia athletes to take part in the Olympic Games.

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Davian Clarke	Jamaica	45.54 s
2	Sanderlei Parrela	Brazil	45.60 s
3	Troy Douglas	Bermuda	45.61 s
4th	Charles Gitonga	Kenya	45.62 s
5	Piotr Rysiukiewicz	Poland	46.07 s
6th	Mohamed Hamed Al-Bishi	Saudi Arabia	46.82 s
7th	Ivan Jean-Marie	St. Lucia	47.13 s
8th	Hassan Abdou	Comoros	50.17 s

Forward 3

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Alvin Harrison	United States	44.69 s
2	Ibrahim Ismail Muftah	Qatar	45.61 s
3	Paul Greene	Australia	46.12 s
4th	Shigekazu Ōmori	Japan	46.30 s
5	Laurent Clerc	Switzerland	46.42 s
6th	Son Ju-il	South Korea	46.74 s
7th	Subul Babo	Papua New Guinea	48.15 s
DNS	Joseph Dipeba	Botswana

Forward 4

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Word Coombs	St. Vincent and the Grenadines	45.84 s
2	Jean-Louis Rapnouil	France	45.93 s
3	Du'aine Ladejo	Great Britain	46.27 s
4th	Troy McIntosh	Bahamas	46.42 s
5	Valdinei da Silva	Brazil	46.61 s
6th	Richard Jones	Guyana	46.99 s
7th	Mpho Morobe	Lesotho	47.54 s
8th	Mohamed Amir	Maldives	49.67 s

Forward 5

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Sugath Thilakaratne	Sri Lanka	45.79 s
2	Michael Johnson	United States	45.80 s
3	Alejandro Cardenas	Mexico	45.85 s
4th	Bobang Phiri	South Africa	45.94 s
5	Kennedy Ochieng	Kenya	45.99 s
6th	Evripides Demosthenous	Cyprus	46.76 s
7th	Emmanuel Rubayiza	Rwanda	49.20 s
DNF	Francis Ogola	Uganda

Forward 6

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Harry Reynolds	United States	45.42 s
2	Arnaud Malherbe	South Africa	45.75 s
3	Tawanda Chiwira	Zimbabwe	45.89 s
4th	Mathias Rusterholz	Switzerland	45.92 s
5	Dawda Jallow	Gambia	46.73 s
6th	Eugene Farrell	Ireland	47.18 s
7th	Casimiro Asumu Nze	Equatorial Guinea	50.14 s
DNF	Ibrahim Hassan	Ghana

Forward 7

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Clement Chukwu	Nigeria	45.18 s
2	Samson Kitur	Kenya	45.39 s
3	Michael McDonald	Jamaica	45.50 s
4th	Hendrick Mokganyetsi	South Africa	45.89 s
5	Osmar dos Santos	Brazil	46.16 s
6th	Robert Guy	Trinidad and Tobago	46.80 s
7th	Martial Biguet	Central African Republic	48.92 s
8th	Anwar Mohamed Ali	Yemen	50.81 s

Forward 8

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Sunday Bada	Nigeria	45.19 s
2	Ivan Thomas	Great Britain	45.22 s
3	Davis Kamoga	Uganda	45.56 s
4th	Roxbert Martin	Jamaica	46.01 s
5	Mark Ladbrook	Australia	46.28 s
6th	Carl Oliver	Bahamas	47.41 s
7th	Kimitene Biyago	Chad	48.88 s
DNS	Ibrahim Ouédraogo	Burundi

Quarter finals

Date: July 27, 1996

From the four quarter-finals, the first four athletes in each run qualified for the semi-finals (highlighted in light blue).

Run 1

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Sunday Bada	Nigeria	44.88 s
2	Davian Clarke	Jamaica	44.98 s
3	Samson Kitur	Kenya	45.03 s
4th	Troy Douglas	Bermuda	45.26 s
5	Arnaud Malherbe	South Africa	45.26 s
6th	Tawanda Chiwira	Zimbabwe	45.38 s
7th	Mathias Rusterholz	Switzerland	45.72 s
8th	Piotr Rysiukiewicz	Poland	46.19 s

Run 2

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Roger Black	Great Britain	44.72 s
2	Ibrahim Ismail Muftah	Qatar	44.96 s
3	Harry Reynolds	United States	45.21 s
4th	Štefan Balošák	Slovakia	45.32 s
5	Alejandro Cardenas	Mexico	45.33 s
6th	Bobang Phiri	South Africa	45.51 s
7th	Sanderlei Parrela	Brazil	45.72 s
8th	Kennedy Ochieng	Kenya	45.72 s

Run 3

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Michael Johnson	United States	44.62 s
2	Roxbert Martin	Jamaica	44.74 s
3	Davis Kamoga	Uganda	44.82 s
4th	Neil de Silva	Trinidad and Tobago	45.02 s
5	Clement Chukwu	Nigeria	45.24 s
6th	Du'aine Ladejo	Great Britain	45.62 s
7th	Sugath Thilakaratne	Sri Lanka	45.78 s
8th	Paul Greene	Australia	46.22 s

Run 4

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Alvin Harrison	United States	44.79 s
2	Ivan Thomas	Great Britain	45.04 s
3	Michael McDonald	Jamaica	45.26 s
4th	Word Coombs	St. Vincent and the Grenadines	45.43 s
5	Jean-Louis Rapnouil	France	45.74 s
6th	Hendrick Mokganyetsi	South Africa	46.48 s
DNF	Jew Monye	Nigeria
DNS	Charles Gitonga	Kenya

Semifinals

Date: July 28, 1996

The first four runners from the two semi-finals qualified for the final (highlighted in light blue).

Run 1

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Roger Black	Great Britain	44.69 s
2	Davian Clarke	Jamaica	44.87 s
3	Ibrahim Ismail Muftah	Qatar	45.02 s
4th	Alvin Harrison	United States	45.04 s
5	Samson Kitur	Kenya	45.17 s
6th	Štefan Balošák	Slovakia	45.59 s
7th	Troy Douglas	Bermuda	46.33 s
DNF	Harry Reynolds	United States

Run 2

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Michael Johnson	United States	44.59 s
2	Roxbert Martin	Jamaica	44.81 s
3	Davis Kamoga	Uganda	44.85 s
4th	Ivan Thomas	Great Britain	45.01 s
5	Sunday Bada	Nigeria	45.30 s
6th	Word Coombs	St. Vincent and the Grenadines	45.36 s
7th	Michael McDonald	Jamaica	45.48 s
8th	Neil de Silva	Trinidad and Tobago	45.56 s

final

The American Olympic champion Michael Johnson in a photo from 2008

space	Surname	nation	time	annotation
1	Michael Johnson	United States	43.49 s	OR
2	Roger Black	Great Britain	44.41 s
3	Davis Kamoga	Uganda	44.53 s
4th	Alvin Harrison	United States	44.62 s
5	Ivan Thomas	Great Britain	44.70 s
6th	Roxbert Martin	Jamaica	44.83 s
7th	Davian Clarke	Jamaica	44.99 s
DNF	Ibrahim Ismail Muftah	Qatar

Date: July 29, 1996

Two Jamaicans, two Americans and two British had each qualified for the final. The final field was completed by one starter each from Qatar and Uganda.

World champion Michael Johnson from the USA was the clear favorite. Since 1989 he has been unbeaten at this distance with one exception. At the Barcelona Games in 1992 , of all places , he missed the final due to food poisoning. Probably his greatest opponent, world record holder and runner-up world champion Harry Reynolds, had to break off his semifinal run here in Atlanta due to an injury. The Jamaican World Cup third Gregory Haughton did not start here. Other competitors were the World Cup fourth Samson Kitur from Kenya, who like Reynolds did not reach the final, and the British European Champion Roger Black.

Michael Johnson ran the final completely undisputed and improved the Olympic record, set in Barcelona by his compatriot Quincy Watts , by a hundredth of a second. When it went into the home stretch, three runners were pretty much on par with the clearly leading Johnson. The American Alvin Harrison and the two Britons Roger Black and Iwan Thomas fought for silver and bronze, while Johnson's lead grew more and more. Roger Black had the greatest stamina of the three pursuers and won the silver medal 92 hundredths of a second behind the Olympic champion. Davis Kamoga from Uganda took bronze in the final meters, more than a second behind Johnson, ahead of Alvin Harrison and Iwan Thomas. Michael Johnson had run out of the biggest lead of an Olympic champion on this route since 1896 .

Three days later, Michael Johnson also won the gold medal in the 200 meters . After his compatriot Valerie Brisco-Hooks ( 1984 ) and the French Marie-José Pérec (1996, a few minutes before Johnson) he became the third athlete to win the double 200 and 400 meters .

In the 23rd Olympic final, Michael Johnson won the 16th gold medal in the USA. It was the fourth US victory in a row.

Davis Kamoga was the first Ugandan medalist in this discipline.

literature

• Gerd Rubenbauer (ed.), Olympic Summer Games Atlanta 1996 with reports by Britta Kruse, Johannes Ebert, Andreas Schmidt and Ernst Christian Schütt, comments: Gerd Rubenbauer and Hans Schwarz, Chronik Verlag im Bertelsmann Verlag, Gütersloh / Munich 1996, p. 30f

Video

• Men's 400m Final Atlanta Olympics 1996 , posted June 20, 2016 on youtube.com, accessed February 26, 2018

Web links

• SportsReference 400m , accessed February 26, 2018
• Official report, part III on the Olympic Games in Atlanta , athletics results: p. 72f, English / French (PDF, 13,520 MB), accessed on February 26, 2018

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Beijing 2015, page 669 , accessed on February 26, 2018
2. ↑ Official Report, Part III on the Olympic Games in Atlanta , Athletics Results: p. 72f, English / French (PDF, 13,520 MB), accessed on February 26, 2018
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Official Report, Part III on the Olympic Games in Atlanta , Athletics Results: p. 73, English / French (PDF, 13,520 MB), accessed on February 26, 2018