Olympic Summer Games 2012 / Athletics - 400 m (men)

sport	athletics
discipline	400 meter run
gender	Men
Attendees	49 athletes from 40 countries
Competition location	Olympic Stadium London
Competition phase	August 4, 2012 (preliminary round) August 5, 2012 (semi-finals) August 6, 2012 (final)
Medalist Kirani James ( GRN )   Luguelin Santos ( DOM )   Lalonde Gordon ( TTO )

The men's 400-meter race at the 2012 London Olympics was held on August 7, 8 and 9, 2012 in the London Olympic Stadium. 49 athletes took part.

Olympic champion was Kirani James from Grenada. He won ahead of Luguelin Santos from the Dominican Republic and Lalonde Gordon from Trinidad and Tobago.

Athletes from Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein did not take part.

Current title holders

Olympic champion	LaShawn Merritt ( USA )	43.75 s	Beijing 2008
World Champion	Kirani James ( Grenada )	44.60 s	Daegu 2011
European champion	Pavel Maslák ( Czech Republic )	45.42 s	Helsinki 2012
Central America and Caribbean champions	Renny Quow ( Trinidad and Tobago )	45.44 s	Mayagüez 2011
South America champion	Kléberson Davide ( Brazil )	46.74 s	Buenos Aires 2011
Asian champion	Yousef Ahmed Masrahi ( Saudi Arabia )	45.79 s	Kobe 2011
African champions	Isaac Makwala ( Botswana )	45.25 s	Porto-Novo 2012
Oceania Champion	Liam Mitchell ( New Zealand )	48.83 s	Cairns 2012

Existing records

World record	Michael Johnson ( USA )	43.18 s	Seville , Spain	August 26, 1999
Olympic record		43.49 s	Atlanta Final , USA	July 29, 1996

Note:
All times in this post are given according to London local time ( UTC ± 0 ).

doping

Even before the start of the competition, the Colombian Diego Palomeque was excluded from participation after positive A and B tests for testosterone.

Qualification basics

Each NOK could nominate up to three athletes who ran the qualifying time of 45.30  seconds (A standard) set by the IAAF in a competition held during the qualifying time. Should no athlete from a NOC achieve the A standard, the NOC concerned could nominate an athlete who had achieved the B standard of 45.90  seconds. Regardless of the running times, the NOKs whose athletes had neither achieved the A nor the B standard could nominate an athlete.

leader

Seven preliminary runs were carried out. The first three athletes per run qualified for the semifinals. In addition, the three 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.

In race one, the South African Oscar Pistorius, the first bilateral leg amputee, competed.

Liemarvin Bonevacia , who started in run two and competed as an independent Olympic athlete under the international abbreviation IOA, was born on the Dutch Caribbean island of Curaçao .

The fastest lead time in race three was achieved by the Belgian Jonathan Borlée with 44.43 s, which was a new Belgian record. Two more national records were broken in this preliminary run. Pavel Maslák , who finished second, improved the Czech record to 44.91 s, while Israeli Donald Sanford ran a new Israeli record with 45.71 s. However, Sanford was only fifth and eliminated.

The slowest time to reach the semi-finals was 46.12 s. This achievement was enough for the Briton Conrad Williams in race six.

LaShawn Merritt , the US defending champion, had to cancel his advance (run six) due to an injury.

Forward 1

August 4, 2012, 10:35 am

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)	annotation
1	Luguelin Santos	Dominican Republic	45.04
2	Oscar Pistorius	South Africa	45.44
3	Maxim Dyldin	Russia	45.52
4th	Rusheen McDonald	Jamaica	46.67
5	Vitaly Butrym	Ukraine	47.62
DNS	Ahmed Mohamed Al-Merjabi	Oman
	Ronny Quow	Trinidad and Tobago

Forward 2

August 4, 2012, 10:43 am

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)	annotation
1	Kirani James	Grenada	45.23
2	Ramon Miller	Bahamas	45.57
3	Liemarvin Bonevacia	Independent Olympian	45.60
4th	Isaac Makwala	Botswana	45.67
5	Deon Lendore	Trinidad and Tobago	45.81
6th	Daundre Barnaby	Canada	46.04
7th	Bereket Desta	Ethiopia	47.40
8th	Bahaa Al-Farra	Palestine	49.93

Forward 3

Donald Sanford (ISR)

August 4, 2012, 10:51 am

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)	annotation
1	Jonathan Borlée	Belgium	44.43	NO
2	Pavel Maslák	Czech Republic	44.91	NO
3	Pavel Trenichin	Russia	45.00
4th	Dane Hyatt	Jamaica	45.14
5	Donald Sanford	Israel	45.71	NO
6th	Nelson Stone	Papua New Guinea	46.71
7th	Sergey Zaykov	Kazakhstan	47.12
8th	Ak Hafiy Tajuddin Rositi	Brunei	48.67

Forward 4

August 4, 2012, 10:59 am

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)	annotation
1	Demetrius Pinder	Bahamas	44.92
2	Bryshon Nellum	United States	45.29
3	Yousef Ahmed Masrahi	Saudi Arabia	45.43
4th	Tabarie Henry	American Virgin Islands	45.43
5	Albert Bravo	Venezuela	45.61
6th	Jermaine Gonzales	Jamaica	46.21
7th	Kristijan Efremov	Macedonia	47.92
8th	Thet Zaw Win	Myanmar	50.07

Forward 5

August 4, 2012, 11:07 am

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)	annotation
1	Chris Brown	Bahamas	45.40
2	Tony McQuay	United States	45.48
3	Nigel Levine	Great Britain	45.58
4th	Yūzō Kanemaru	Japan	46.01
5	Janis Leitis	Latvia	46.41
6th	Augusto Stanley	Paraguay	47.21

Forward 6

The American LaShawn Merritt had to give up injured

August 4, 2012, 11:15 a.m.

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)	annotation
1	Steven Solomon	Australia	45.18
2	Lalonde Gordon	Trinidad and Tobago	45.43
3	Conrad Williams	Great Britain	46.12
4th	Marcell Deák Nagy	Hungary	46.17
5	Winston George	Guyana	46.86
6th	Sajjad Hashemi	Iran	47.75
DNF	LaShawn Merritt	United States

Forward 7

August 4, 2012, 11:23 am

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)	annotation
1	Kevin Borlée	Belgium	45.14
2	Martyn Rooney	Great Britain	45.36
3	Rabah Yusuf	Sudan	45.46
4th	Nery Brenes	Costa Rica	45.65
5	Erison Hurtault	Dominica	46.05
6th	Marcin Marciniszyn	Poland	46.35
-	Mathieu Gnanligo	Benin	DNF

Semifinals

There were three semi-finals. The first two athletes of each run qualified for the final. In addition, the two 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.

With 44.58 s, Lalonde Gordon ran the fastest semifinal time in race one.

44.99 s were enough for Jonathan Borlée in run two to qualify for the final. All qualified athletes had to run under 45 seconds.

Run 1

August 5, 2012, 8:40 pm

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)	annotation
1	Lalonde Gordon	Trinidad and Tobago	44.58
2	Demetrius Pinder	Bahamas	44.94
3	Steven Solomon	Australia	44.97
4th	Rabah Yusuf	Sudan	45.13
5	Pavel Maslák	Czech Republic	45.15
6th	Tabarie Henry	American Virgin Islands	45.19
7th	Pavel Trenichin	Russia	45.35
8th	Conrad Williams	Great Britain	45.53

Run 2

Oscar Pistorius (front) and Nigel Levine in the second semifinals

August 5, 2012, 8:48 pm

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)	annotation
1	Kirani James	Grenada	44.59
2	Chris Brown	Bahamas	44.67
3	Jonathan Borlée	Belgium	44.99
4th	Tony McQuay	United States	45.31
5	Maxim Dyldin	Russia	45.39
6th	Nigel Levine	Great Britain	45.64
7th	Albert Bravo	Venezuela	46.22
8th	Oscar Pistorius	South Africa	46.54

Run 3

Scene from the third semifinals

August 5, 2012, 8:56 pm

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)	annotation
1	Luguelin Santos	Dominican Republic	44.78
2	Kevin Borlée	Belgium	44.84
3	Bryshon Nellum	United States	45.02
4th	Ramon Miller	Bahamas	45.11
5	Martyn Rooney	Great Britain	45.31
6th	Dane Hyatt	Jamaica	45.59
7th	Yousef Ahmed Masrahi	Saudi Arabia	45.91
8th	Liemarvin Bonevacia	Independent Olympian	1: 36.42 min

• 

  Liemarvin Bonevacia retired as an independent participant in eighth place in his semi-final run

• 

  Fifth place in his semifinals was not enough for the Czech Pavel Maslák to take part in the final

• 

  The South African Oscar Pistorius, running with a prosthesis, failed in the semifinals

final

Final race from the finish line

August 6, 2012, 9:30 p.m.

In the final, two Belgians and two athletes from the Bahamas faced each other. There was also one participant each from Australia, the Dominican Republic, Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago. For the third time in Olympic history, no US athlete took part in the 400-meter finals. In 1908 , two qualified US-Americans failed to compete in the re-run, in 1980 the US boycotted the Games in Moscow . So this happened for the first time for purely sporting reasons.

With Kirani James, an athlete from the Caribbean island of Grenada won an Olympic medal for the first time. What was also unusual about the final was that all three medal winners came from three Caribbean island states.

The win time of 43.94 s is the first time under 44 seconds that a non-US athlete achieved. After the 1988 Olympic champion Steve Lewis , Kirani James is only the second athlete under the age of twenty to break the 44-second mark.

It was the first Olympic final in which the Belgians Kevin and Jonathan Borlée had twin brothers.

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)	annotation
1	Kirani James	Grenada	43.94	NO
2	Luguelin Santos	Dominican Republic	44.46
3	Lalonde Gordon	Trinidad and Tobago	44.52
4th	Chris Brown	Bahamas	44.79
5	Kevin Borlée	Belgium	44.81
6th	Jonathan Borlée	Belgium	44.83
7th	Demetrius Pinder	Bahamas	44.98
8th	Steven Solomon	Australia	45.14

Picture gallery

• 

  Olympic champion:
  Kirani James from Grenada

• 

  Silver medal:
  Luguelin Santos, Dominican Republic

• 

  Bronze medal:
  Lalonde Gordon from Trinidad and Tobago

• 

  The Belgian twins Kevin and Jonathan Borlée finished in fifth and sixth

Web links

• SportsReference 400 m , accessed September 10, 2018
• Official report , accessed September 10, 2018
• Results on the website of the IAAF World Athletics Federation (English), accessed on September 10, 2018

Video recordings

• Prelims on youtube.com, published August 4, 2012, accessed September 10, 2018
• Semi-finals on youtube.com, published August 5, 2012, accessed September 10, 2018
• Finale on youtube.com, published August 6, 2012, accessed September 10, 2018

Individual evidence

1. ^ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Beijing 2015, page 669 , accessed on September 10, 2018
2. ↑ Colombian runner excluded , RP Online, August 12, 2012, accessed September 10, 2018