Athletics at the 1960 Summer Olympics – Men's 800 metres explained

Event:	Men's 800 metres
Games:	1960 Summer
Venue:	Olympic Stadium
Dates:	August 31 (heats and quarterfinals) September 1 (semifinals) September 2 (final)
Competitors:	51
Nations:	35
Win Value:	1:46.48
Longnames:	yes
Gold:	Peter Snell
Goldnoc:	NZL
Silver:	Roger Moens
Silvernoc:	BEL
Bronze:	George Kerr
Bronzenoc:	BWI
Prev:	1956
Next:	1964

The men's 800 metres middle distance event at the 1960 Olympic Games took place between August 31 and September 2.^[1] Fifty-one athletes from 35 nations competed. The maximum number of athletes per nation had been set at 3 since the 1930 Olympic Congress.

All three nations earning medals in 1960 were new to the podium in the event. The event was won by Peter Snell of New Zealand, the nation's first medal in the men's 800 metres. Snell would defend his title in 1964. Roger Moens took silver, earning Belgium's first medal. George Kerr took bronze for the British West Indies, one of only two medals that nation earned in its brief Olympic history (the 4 × 400 metres relay bronze a few days later would be the other). After four straight gold medals from 1936 to 1956, the United States failed to even make the final.

Summary

Only six men were seeded into the final. From the gun Christian Wägli led the pack of five runners off the turn, with only Manfred Matuschewski already beaten. Falling in the back of the pack was Peter Snell from lane 6, the far outside. Wägli held the lead down the final backstretch and through the final turn, with Roger Moens moving in behind him ready to pounce out of a still tight pack. Snell was still at the back, boxed in with George Kerr to his outside. Coming off the turn, Moens pounced, passing Wägli in lane 2 with clear sailing to victory. But Moens' move broke up the pack, it was a free-for-all sprint to the finish. With Wägli struggling on the rail, Snell had a path down lane 1. On the outside Kerr passed Paul Schmidt and was sprinting in lane 3. A surprised Moens looked to his inside to see who the competitor was who was passing him. It was Snell with more power. Moens tried to accelerate again but Snell's strength was too much. Looking at Snell again he leaned for the line but too little too late to catch Snell.

Background

This was the 14th appearance of the event, which is one of 12 athletics events to have been held at every Summer Olympics. None of the finalists from 1956 returned. Roger Moens of Belgium was the favorite; he had set the world record in 1955 but missed the 1956 Games due to injury. George Kerr of Jamaica (then competing as part of the British West Indies) was "expected to be his biggest challenger".^[2]

Guyana, Liechtenstein, Morocco, Rhodesia, and Tunisia appeared in the event for the first time; the British West Indies federation competed for the only Games of its existence, though members Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago had each previously had competitors in the 800 metres. In addition, Wim Esajas had been set to become Suriname's first participant in any Olympic event, but was not informed that his heat had been rescheduled and missed it. Great Britain and the United States each made their 13th appearance, tied for the most among all nations.

Competition format

For the first time, the 800 metres was run over four rounds. The final, which had been 9 men from 1920 to 1952 but was reduced to 8 in 1956, was further reduced to only 6 men in 1960. There were nine first-round heats, each with between 6 and 8 athletes (before withdrawals); the top three runners in each heat advanced to the quarterfinals. There were four quarterfinals, each with 6 or 7 athletes (again, before withdrawals); the top three in each heat advanced to the semifinals. There were two semifinals with 6 athletes each; the top three runners in each semifinal advanced to the six-man final.^[2] ^[3]

Records

These were the standing world and Olympic records (in minutes) prior to the 1948 Summer Olympics.

Six of the 12 semifinalists came in under the Olympic record time, but George Kerr was the first and fastest in that round, setting the record at 1:47.26. That lasted only until the final, however, as all three medalists beat the time. Peter Snell's gold-winning 1:46.48 stood as the new Olympic record after the event.

Schedule

For the first time since 1920, two rounds (round 1 and the quarterfinals) were held on the same day.

All times are Central European Time (UTC+1)

Date	Time	Round
Wednesday, 31 August 1960	11:00 16:35	Round 1 Quarterfinals
Thursday, 1 September 1960	16:40	Semifinals
Friday, 2 September 1960	16:45	Final

Results

Heats

The fastest three runners in each of the nine heats advanced to the quarterfinal round.

Heat 1

Lambrechts ran in heat 2. Parsch ran in heat 7.

Rank	Athlete	Time
1		1:51.86
2	Valery Bulyshev	1:51.83
3	Zbigniew Makomaski	1:52.70
4	Brian Hewson	1:54.73
5	Yair Pantilat	1:54.86
6	George Johnson	1:56.04
—

Heat 2

Rank	Athlete	Time
1	Tom Farrell	1:49.05
2	Jerry Siebert	1:49.08
3	Jos Lambrechts	1:49.24
4	Pierre-Yvon Lenoir	1:49.41
5	Jaromír Šlégr	1:50.23
6	Moussa Said	1:50.49

Heat 3

Rank	Athlete	Time
1	Peter Snell	1:48.22
2	Christian Wägli	1:48.88
3	Ernie Cunliffe	1:48.95
4	István Rózsavölgyi	1:49.51
—	Ismael Delgado
Abdul Ghafar Ghafoori

Heat 4

Rank	Athlete	Time
1	Tony Blue	1:50.82
2	Ergas Leps	1:50.93
3	Manfred Matuschewski	1:51.17
4	Vasily Savinkov	1:51.49
5	Konstantinos Moragiemos	1:54.60
6	Ahmed Lazreg	1:55.91

Heat 5

Rank	Athlete	Time
1	Abram Kryvosheiev	1:53.49
2	Jörg Balke	1:53.72
3	John Wenk	1:54.27
4	Norbert Haupert	1:54.83
5	Frederick Owusu	1:55.41
6	Egon Oehri	2:00.49

Heat 6

Rank	Athlete	Time
1	Roger Moens	1:50.73
2	Per Knuts	1:51.36
3	Lajos Kovács	1:51.45
4	Stefan Lewandowski	1:51.75
5	Svavar Markússon	1:52.88
6	Abdeslem Dargouth	1:54.87

Heat 7

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time
1	George Kerr		1:51.11
2	Terry Sullivan		1:51.26
3	Péter Parsch		1:51.34
4	Borut Ingolič		1:51.51
5	Pertti Ålander		1:52.20
6	Zbigniew Orywał		1:55.89
data-sort-value=7	—	A. Nur Farah

Heat 8

Rank	Athlete	Time
1	Paul Schmidt	1:50.97
2	Rudolf Klaban	1:50.96
3	Ronnie Delany	1:51.19
4	Joe Mullins	1:51.46
5	Gianfranco Baraldi	1:52.15
6	Julio Gómez	1:53.90
7	Somsakdi Tongaram	1:57.24

Heat 9

Rank	Athlete	Time
1	Tom Murphy	1:52.30
2	Ralph Gomes	1:53.06
3	Ekrem Koçak	1:59.12
4	Sig Ohlemann	2:07.40
—	Julian Brown

Quarterfinals

The fastest three runners in each of the four heats advanced to the semifinal round.

Quarterfinal 1

Rank	Athlete	Time
1	Tom Murphy	1:48.12
2	Christian Wägli	1:48.15
3	Manfred Matuschewski	1:48.24
4	Donal Smith	1:48.52
5	Terry Sullivan	1:50.01
—	Jos Lambrechts
Péter Parsch

Quarterfinal 2

Rank	Athlete	Time
1	Paul Schmidt	1:51.38
2	Abram Krivosheyev	1:51.40
3	Jerry Siebert	1:51.53
4	Zbigniew Makomaski	1:51.72
5	Ralph Gomes	1:52.47
6	Lajos Kovács	1:52.55
7	Per Knuts	1:52.91

Quarterfinal 3

Rank	Athlete	Time
1	George Kerr	1:49.58
2	Ernie Cunliffe	1:49.83
3	Tony Blue	1:50.05
4	John Wenk	1:50.13
5	Valery Bulyshev	1:50.74
6	Ronnie Delany	1:51.42

Quarterfinal 4

Rank	Athlete	Time
1	Roger Moens	1:48.69
2	Peter Snell	1:48.84
3	Jörg Balke	1:48.98
4	Rudolf Klaban	1:50.32
5	Tom Farrell	1:50.84
6	Ergas Leps	1:52.13
7	Ekrem Koçak	1:52.66

Semifinals

The fastest three runners in each of the two heats advanced to the final round.

Semifinal 1

Rank	Athlete	Time	Notes
1		1:47.26	,
2	Christian Wägli	1:47.40
3	Manfred Matuschewski	1:47.54
4	Jörg Balke	1:47.63
5	Tony Blue	1:47.97
6	Tom Murphy	1:48.29

Semifinal 2

Rank	Athlete	Time
1		1:47.34
2	Roger Moens	1:47.49
3	Paul Schmidt	1:47.95
4	Jerry Siebert	1:48.20
5	Abram Krivosheyev	1:48.25
6	Ernie Cunliffe	1:50.92

Final

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
			1:46.48
			1:46.55
			1:47.25
4			1:47.82
5			1:48.19
6			1:52.21

Notes and References

Web site: Athletics at the 1960 Rome Summer Games: Men's 800 metres . https://web.archive.org/web/20200417171115/https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/summer/1960/ATH/mens-800-metres.html . dead . 17 April 2020 . 15 October 2017 . sports-reference.com.
Web site: 800 metres, Men . Olympedia . 7 August 2020.
Official Report, pp. 80–83.