1996 Summer Olympics / Athletics - Marathon (Men)
sport | athletics | ||||||||
discipline | Marathon run | ||||||||
gender | Men | ||||||||
Attendees | 124 athletes from 79 countries | ||||||||
Competition location |
Centennial Olympic Stadium (start and finish) |
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Competition phase | 4th August 1996 | ||||||||
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The men's marathon at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta was held on August 4, 1996. The start and finish was the Centennial Olympic Stadium . 124 runners started, 111 finished the race.
The South African Josia Thugwane became Olympic champion . He won ahead of the South Korean Lee Bong-ju and the Kenyan Erick Wainaina .
Konrad Dobler and Stephan Freilang started for Germany . Dobler came in 48th, but Freilang couldn't finish the race.
Athletes from Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein did not take part.
Current title holders
Olympic champion 1992 | Hwang Young-cho ( South Korea ) | 2:13:23 h | Barcelona 1992 |
World Champion 1995 | Martín Fiz ( Spain ) | 2:11:41 h | Gothenburg 1995 |
European Champion 1994 | 2:10:31 h | Helsinki 1994 | |
Pan American champion 1995 | Benjamín Paredes ( Mexico ) | 2:14:44 h | Mar del Plata 1995 |
Central America and Caribbean champions 1995 | Sergio Jiménez ( Mexico ) | 2:13:23 h | Guatemala City 1995 |
South American Champion 1995 | Oswald Adams ( Guyana ) | 2:43:40 h | Georgetown 1995 - see note below |
Asian champion 1995 | Yukio Suzuki ( Japan ) | 2:19:04 h | Ōita 1994 |
African champion 1996 | Marathon run not in the championship program | ||
Oceania Champion 1994 | Robert Holland ( New Zealand ) | 2:33:16 h | Auckland 1994 |
Note: The race at the South American Championships was won by guest runner Adalbert Browne ( Barbados ) in 2:33:06 hours.
Existing records
World record | 2:06:50 h | Belayneh Dinsamo ( Ethiopia ) | Rotterdam , Netherlands | April 17, 1988 |
Olympic record | 2:09:21 h | Carlos Lopes ( Portugal ) | Los Angeles Marathon , USA | August 12, 1984 |
Note: World records were not set in the marathon because of the different track conditions.
Routing
The race started at the Centennial Olympic Stadium , where initially three and a half laps had to be covered before heading north out of the stadium on Capitol Avenue . After crossing Interstate 20 / Interstate 85 , the route passed Georgia State University on Piedmont Avenue . The rest of the way ran east, then in an arc back to Piedmont Avenue . We continued northward past the Botanical Gardens to the Piedmont Heights district , where Piedmont Avenue becomes Piedmont Road . The path continued to follow the course of the road north. After ten miles the route turned east onto Peachtree Road . The turning point was shortly after twenty kilometers. We went back west on Peachtree Road , which turns southwest after the junction with Piedmont Road and later becomes Peachtree Street . North of the university, the route continued east until reaching Capitol Avenue again , on which it went back to the stadium. There was still three quarters of a lap to run on the stadium track to the finish.
initial situation
Especially in the marathon discipline, there are often surprises in the winners' lists and in the top positions. Time and again, runners with top results in the actual race are not considered among the favorites beforehand. Here in Atlanta , the Spaniard Martín Fiz, the reigning world and European champion, was the clear favorite for the marathon. Of the runners placed in the top eight in the previous games, only the Italian Salvatore Bettiol - he finished twentieth, the Japanese Hiromi Taniguchi - he finished nineteen, and the German Stephan Freilang - he gave up - there. The competition for Fiz was seen in the vice world champion Dionicio Cerón from Mexico, the holder of the world record Belayneh Dinsamo from Ethiopia - his record run was eight years ago, the Brazilian World Cup third Luíz Antônio dos Santos, in Fiz's compatriot Alberto Juzdado, World Cup - Fifth, and Diego García, sixth in the World Championship, also Vice European Champion, the British World Championship seventh Richard Nerurkar, also fourth in the European Championship , as well as the Australian Steve Moneghetti, who is strong in many races, eighth at the last World Championships.
Race course
Date: August 4, 1996
After the start, a top group of sixty had formed. At kilometer 22, the South Africans took over the lead to accelerate the pace. The three South Africans Josia Thugwane, Gert Thys and Lawrence Peu as well as the Kenyan Erick Wainaina and the Portuguese Domingos Castro set themselves apart from the rest of the field at 25 km. But the still large leadership group caught up again. At thirty kilometers Castro ran a few meters ahead of the others, but soon afterwards he too was back in the big top group. But then there were more promising escape attempts, initially by Thugwane, who found a first companion in the Korean Lee Bong-ju. The previous leadership group was falling apart more and more. Wainaina re-established contact with the two runners in front. Thugwane regained a small lead after 35 kilometers, which he could not maintain and so he, Lee and Wainaina ran as a three-man lead group with a clear lead over everyone else. They stayed together until the stadium arrived, so that the outcome of the race was exciting until the end. In the entrance tunnel to the stadium Thugwane was able to set himself apart from his two opponents and Lee positioned himself with a small gap in front of Wainaina. Josia Thugwane defended his lead to the finish and became Olympic champion. Lee Bong-ju won the fight for the silver medal, Erick Wainaina took third place. World and European champion Martín Fiz from Spain finished fourth. Richard Nerurkar was fifth, ahead of the Mexicans Germán Silva and Steve Moneghetti.
With eight seconds difference between first and third place, it was the closest final in the history of the Olympic Games. The Atlanta marathon also had the largest field of runners with 124 participants.
Split times | |||
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Intermediate mark |
Meanwhile | Leading | 5 km time |
5 km | 16:14 min | Peter Fonseca with a large group | 16:14 min |
10 km | 31:50 min | Grzegorz Gajdus with a large group | 15:36 min |
15 km | 47:36 min | Tendai Chimusasa with a large group | 15:46 min |
20 km | 1:04:06 h | Leszek Bebło with a large group | 16:30 min |
25 km | 1:19:54 h | Tendai Chimusasa with a smaller group | 15:48 min |
30 km | 1:35:24 h | Domingos Castro a few meters in front of a larger group | 15:30 min |
35 km | 1:50:35 h | Josia Thugwane with Lee Bong-ju and Erick Wainaina | 15:11 min |
40 km | 2:06:08 h | Josia Thugwane with Lee Bong-ju and Erick Wainaina | 15:33 min |
Result
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. 35
Web links and sources
- Official Report, Part III on the Olympic Games in Atlanta , p. 106, English / French (PDF, 13,520 MB), accessed on February 27, 2018
- from marathoninfo.free.fr , in French, accessed February 27, 2018
- Men's marathon run at the 1996 Summer Olympics from Sports-Reference.com database , accessed February 27, 2018
Video
- 1996 Olympic Marathon (Atlanta) , published July 26, 2012 on youtube.com, accessed February 27, 2018
Individual evidence
- ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Beijing 2015 p. 687 (English), accessed on February 27, 2018
- ↑ Route map of the US Athletics Association ( Memento of the original from September 26, 2016 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. (English), accessed February 27, 2018
- ↑ 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. 106, English / French (PDF, 13,520 MB), accessed on February 27, 2018