1996 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 5000 m (women)

sport	athletics
discipline	5000 meter run
gender	Women
Attendees	46 athletes from 25 countries
Competition location	Centennial Olympic Stadium
Competition phase	July 26, 1996 (preliminary round) July 28, 1996 (final)
Medalists Wang Junxia ( CHN )   Pauline Konga ( KEN )   Roberta Brunet ( ITA )

The women's 5,000-meter run at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta was held on July 26 and 28, 1996 at the Centennial Olympic Stadium . This route was first staged in the Olympic women athletics, it replaced that of 1984 bis 1992 discharged 3,000-meter race . 46 athletes took part.

The first Olympic champion was the Chinese Wang Junxia . She won ahead of the Kenyan Pauline Konga and the Italian Roberta Brunet .

Claudia Lokar and Petra Wassiluk started for Germany, both of whom were eliminated in the preliminary round.
The Swiss Anita Weyermann reached the final and was fourteenth there.
Athletes from Austria and Liechtenstein did not take part.

Current titleholders

Olympic champion 1992 - 3000 meters	Jelena Romanowa ( EUN )	8: 46.04 min	Barcelona 1992
World Champion 1995	Sonia O'Sullivan ( Ireland )	14: 46.47 min	Gothenburg 1995
European champion 1994 - 3000 meters		8: 31.84 min	Helsinki 1994
Pan American Champion 1995	Adriana Fernández ( Mexico )	15: 46.32 min	Mar del Plata 1995
Central America and Caribbean champion 1995		16: 34.3 min	Guatemala City 1995
South America Champion 1995	Marlene Flores ( Chile )	16: 48.35 min	Manaus 1995
Asian champion 1995	Wang Junxia ( People's Republic of China )	15: 25.65 min	Jakarta 1995
African champion 1996	Florence Djépé ( Cameroon )	17: 59.32 min	Yaoundé 1996
Oceania champion 1994	Nicola McDonald ( New Zealand )	18: 03.37 min	Auckland 1994

Existing records

World record	14: 36.45 min	Fernanda Ribeiro ( Portugal )	Hechtel , Belgium	July 22, 1995
Olympic record	Competition at the Olympic Games not yet held

Note: All times are Atlanta local time ( UTC − 5 ).

Preliminary round

July 26, 1996, from 7:50 p.m.

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

Forward 1

The Kenyan Lydia Cheromei was tenth in her preliminary run and was eliminated

space	Surname	nation	Time (min)	annotation
1	Sonia O'Sullivan	Ireland	15: 15.80	first OR
2	Elena Fidatov	Romania	15: 17.89
3	Lynn Jennings	United States	15: 19.66
4th	Anita Weyermann	Switzerland	15: 19.91
5	Sara Wedlund	Sweden	15: 20.61
6th	Anne Hare	New Zealand	15: 22.31
7th	Petra Wassiluk	Germany	15: 37.73
8th	Yang Siju	People's Republic of China	15: 40.41
9	Roseli Machado	Brazil	15: 41.63
10	Lydia Cheromei	Kenya	15: 49.85
11	Harumi Hiroyama	Japan	15: 50.43
12	Isabel Martínez	Spain	15: 59.42
13	Luchia Yishak	Ethiopia	16: 04.29
14th	Kate Anderson	Australia	16: 17.83
15th	Alison Wyeth	Great Britain	16: 24.74
16	Rachida Mahamane	Niger	19: 17.87

Forward 2

The Portuguese Ana Dias was eliminated as tenth of her preliminary run

Jeļena Čelnova from Latvia finished eleventh in her preliminary run and was eliminated

The American Mary Slaney, formerly also successful under her name Mary Decker, first crossed the finish line in a time of 15: 41.30 minutes in seventh place. In June 1996 she had become conspicuous at the US Olympic eliminations due to an increased testosterone / epitestosterone value. She was banned by the IAAF for four years, but the US federation acquitted her. In April 1999, Slaney was subsequently suspended by the IAAF arbitration tribunal for the period from July 17, 1996 to June 17, 1998, and all results were deleted. So for them the subsequent disqualification for this preliminary run was the inevitable consequence.

space	Surname	nation	Time (min)	annotation
1	Roberta Brunet	Italy	15: 22.58
2	Michiko Shimizu	Japan	15: 23.56
3	Paula Radcliffe	Great Britain	15: 23.90
4th	Wang Junxia	People's Republic of China	15: 24.28
5	Rose Cheruiyot	Kenya	15: 16.87
6th	Claudia Lokar	Germany	15: 28.35
7th	Kathy Butler	Canada	15: 47.50
8th	Merima Denboba	Ethiopia	15: 48.35
9	Nina Christiansen	Denmark	15: 56.38
10	Ana Dias	Portugal	15: 57.35
11	Stela Olteanu	Romania	15: 58.28
12	Jeļena Čelnova	Latvia	15: 59.00
13	Marie McMahon	Ireland	15: 59.12
14th	Natalie Harvey	Australia	16: 06.45
DNS	Gwendolien Griffiths	South Africa
DOP	Mary Slaney	United States	15: 41.30

Forward 3

Co-favorite Gabriela Szabo from Romania was eliminated in seventh place in her preliminary run

Irina Mikitenko, who started here for Kazakhstan and in later years for Germany, was eleventh in her run and was eliminated

space	Surname	nation	Time (min)	annotation
1	Pauline Konga	Kenya	15: 07.01	OR
2	Ayelech Worku	Ethiopia	15: 21.59
3	Amy Rudolph	United States	15: 21.90
4th	Elena Romanova	Russia	15: 23.37
5	Wei Li	People's Republic of China	15: 33.49
6th	Silvia Sommaggio	Italy	15: 33.63
7th	Gabriela Szabo	Romania	15: 42.35
8th	Maria Cristina Petite	Spain	15: 48.63
9	Zahra Ouaziz	Morocco	15: 55.03
10	Katy McCandless	Ireland	15: 55.66
11	Irina Mikitenko	Kazakhstan	15: 57.67
12	Yoshiko Ichikawa	Japan	15: 58.90
13	Sonia McGeorge	Great Britain	16: 01.92
14th	Robyn Meagher	Canada	16: 24.49
15th	Marta Portoblanco	Nicaragua	18: 42.78
DNS	Carolyn Shuvalov	Australia

final

The British Paula Radcliffe finished fifth in the Olympics

The Russian Olympic sixth Jelena Romanowa

July 28, 1996, 8:45 p.m.

For the first Olympic final over this distance, two Kenyans and two US athletes as well as one athlete each from Ethiopia, China, Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Romania, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland and Great Britain qualified.

The favorite was above all world champion Sonia O'Sullivan from Ireland, who was also European champion over 3000 meters . The highly rated Romanian Gabriela Szabo, like the Moroccan World Cup third Zahra Ouaziz, was eliminated in the preliminary run. Other contenders for top placings were the Briton Paula Radcliffe, who always had problems with her sprinting skills in tight finish situations, and the Chinese world champion of 1993 over 10,000 meters Wang Junxia. The participants from Africa and China were difficult to assess. In the recent past, especially female runners - u. a. at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart - always amazed with top performances.

After 1000 meters, the Kenyan Pauline Konga took the lead. With a transit time of 3: 06.15 min at this point, the race was not particularly fast. O'Sullivan had increasing problems with the heat, fell further and further after the halfway point and then gave up. The race had become significantly faster now. Konga ensured a high pace and, together with Wang Junxia, ​​continued to stand out from her competitors. A field of five with Radcliffe in the lead was behind the two leaders. Other pursuers were the Italian Roberta Brunet, Rose Cheruiyot from Kenya, the Russian Jelena Romanowa and the Japanese Michiko Shimizu. The distance to the next runners was not great, however. With two laps to go, Wang Junxia took the initiative and passed the long-leading Konga. The Chinese went into the final round with a clear lead. Konga was also safe second. The battle for the bronze medal was exciting now. Initially, Brunet and Radcliffe broke away from the chasing field. but the British woman now had her well-known sprint problems. The athletes crossed the finish line with clear gaps. Olympic champion was Wang Junxia ahead of Pauline Konga. Roberta Brunet confidently defended her bronze place in front of Michiko Shimizu, who pushed Paula Radcliffe to fifth. Jelena Romanowa was sixth ahead of the Romanian Elena Fidatow and Jelena Romanowa.

Split times
Intermediate mark	Meanwhile	Leading	1000 m time
1000 m	3: 06.15 min	Pauline Konga in front of the closed field	3: 06.15 min
2000 m	6: 08.76 min	Anne Hare in front of the closed field	3: 03.51 min
3000 m	9: 08.02 min	Pauline Konga in front of a larger leading group	2: 59.26 min
4000 m	12:05:25 min	Pauline Konga before Wang Junxia	2: 57.23 min
5000 m	14: 59.88 min	Wang Junxia	2: 54.63 min

space	Surname	nation	Time (min)	annotation
1	Wang Junxia	People's Republic of China	14: 59.88	OR
2	Pauline Konga	Kenya	15: 03.49
3	Roberta Brunet	Italy	15: 07.52
4th	Michiko Shimizu	Japan	15: 09.05
5	Paula Radcliffe	Great Britain	15: 13.11
6th	Elena Romanova	Russia	15: 14.09
7th	Elena Fidatov	Romania	15: 16.71
8th	Rose Cheruiyot	Kenya	15: 17.33
9	Lynn Jennings	United States	15: 17.50
10	Amy Rudolph	United States	15: 19.77
11	Sara Wedlund	Sweden	15: 22.98
12	Ayelech Worku	Ethiopia	15: 28.81
13	Anne Hare	New Zealand	15: 29.11
14th	Anita Weyermann	Switzerland	15: 44.40
DNF	Sonia O'Sullivan	Ireland

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. 48f

Web links

• SportsReference 5000m , accessed March 7, 2018
• Official Report, Part III on the Olympic Games in Atlanta , p. 79, English / French (PDF, 13,520 MB), accessed on March 7, 2018

Video

• Women's 5000m Final Atlanta Olympics 1996 , posted June 20, 2016 on youtube.com, accessed March 7, 2018

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Beijing 2015, page 796 , accessed on March 7, 2018
2. ↑ ^{a b} Official Report, Part III on the Olympic Games in Atlanta ( Memento of the original from October 7, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , P. 79, English / French (PDF, 13,520 MB), accessed on March 7, 2018 
3. ^ Article in Spiegel from April 26, 1999 , accessed on March 7, 2018