Athletics at the 1984 Summer Olympics – Men's 100 metres explained

Event:	Men's 100 metres
Games:	1984 Summer
Venue:	Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
Dates:	August 3 (heats and quarterfinals) August 4 (semifinals and final)
Competitors:	82
Nations:	59
Win Value:	9.99
Longnames:	yes
Gold:	Carl Lewis
Goldnoc:	USA
Silver:	Sam Graddy
Silvernoc:	USA
Bronze:	Ben Johnson
Bronzenoc:	CAN
Prev:	1980
Next:	1988

The men's 100 metres sprint event at the 1984 Olympic Games took place between August 3 and August 4.^[1] Eighty-two athletes from 59 countries participated.^[2] Each nation was limited to 3 athletes per rules in force since the 1930 Olympic Congress. The event was won by Carl Lewis of the United States, that nation's first title after two Games of missing the podium (4th in 1976, boycotted in 1980). Canada's Ben Johnson took bronze to break up the Americans' bid to sweep the podium (which they had done in 1904 and 1912); it was Canada's first medal in the event since 1964.

Background

This was the twentieth time the event was held, having appeared at every Olympics since the first in 1896. Defending gold medal winner Allan Wells of Great Britain was the only finalist from the Moscow Games to return. The American team was strong, led by 1983 World Championships in Athletics winner Carl Lewis, who was attempting to match Jesse Owens's 1936 quadruple (100, 200, 4x100, and long jump). Sam Graddy and Ron Brown were the other members of the United States squad, edging out world record holder and World Championships runner-up Calvin Smith. Challengers to the hosts included World Championship finalists Wells, Paul Narracott of Australia, Christian Haas of West Germany, and Desai Williams of Canada, as well as up-and-coming Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson.^[2]

Thirteen nations appeared in the event for the first time: Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh, the British Virgin Islands, China (in its People's Republic form), Costa Rica, Equatorial Guinea, The Gambia, Mauritius, Oman, Qatar, the Solomon Islands, Swaziland, and the United Arab Emirates. The United States made its 19th appearance in the event, most of any country, having missed only the boycotted 1980 Games.

Competition format

The event retained the same basic four round format introduced in 1920: heats, quarterfinals, semifinals, and a final. The "fastest loser" system, introduced in 1968, was used again to ensure that the quarterfinals and subsequent rounds had exactly 8 runners per heat; this time, the system was used in both the preliminaries and quarterfinals.

The first round consisted of 11 heats, each with 7 or 8 athletes. The top three runners in each heat advanced, along with the next seven fastest runners overall. This made 40 quarterfinalists, who were divided into 5 heats of 8 runners. The top three runners in each quarterfinal advanced, with one "fastest loser" place. The 16 semifinalists competed in two heats of 8, with the top four in each semifinal advancing to the eight-man final.^{[2] [3]}

Records

These are the standing world and Olympic records (in seconds) prior to the 1980 Summer Olympics.

World Record	9.93	Calvin Smith	Colorado Springs (United States)	July 3, 1983
Olympic Record	9.95	Jim Hines	Mexico City (Mexico)	October 14, 1968

Results

Heats

The top three runners in each of the eleven heats and the next seven fastest, advanced to the quarterfinal round.

Heat 1

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.32
2	Tony Sharpe		10.38
3	Mike McFarlane		10.47
4	Hasely Crawford		10.48
5	Peter Van Miltenburg		10.55
6	Vicente Daniel		10.81
7	Henry Ngolwe		10.94
8	Paul Réneau		10.96

Heat 2

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.32
2	Mohamed Purnomo		10.40
3	José Javier Arqués		10.42
4	Marc Gasparoni		10.47
5	Emilio Samayoa		10.84
6	Barnabé Messomo		10.98
7	Charles Mbazira		11.03
8	Mohamed Abdullah		11.11

Heat 3

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.35
2	Chidi Imoh		10.39
3	Charles-Louis Seck		10.45
4	Christian Nenepath		10.66
	Henri Ndinga		10.66
6	Abdullah Sulaiman Al-Akbary		10.86
7	Inoke Bainimoli		11.15
8	Daniel André		11.19

Heat 4

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.52
2	Paul Narracott		10.55
3	Neville Hodge		10.58
4	Audrick Lightbourne		10.64
5	Gus Young		10.64
6	Bill Trott		10.76
7	Kgosiemang Khumoyarano		11.49

Heat 5

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.29
2	Donovan Reid		10.41
3	Jürgen Evers		10.54
4	Hiroki Fuwa		10.56
5	Philip Attipoe		10.60
6	Jean-Yves Mallat		10.83
7	Markus Büchel		10.98
8	Clifford Mamba		11.24

Heat 6

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.24
2	Antoine Richard		10.35
3	Antonio Ullo		10.36
4	Paulo Roberto Correia		10.45
5	Anthony Jones		10.69
6	Oliver Daniels		10.76
7	Muhammad Mansha		10.87

Heat 7

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.35
2	Yu Zhuanghui		10.53
3	Bruno Marie-Rose		10.59
4	Earl Haley		10.74
5	Julien Thode		10.92
6	Ronald Russell		11.02
7	Denis Rose		11.04

Heat 8

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.46
2	Stefano Tilli		10.48
3	Fred Martin		10.64
4	Luís Barroso		10.76
5	Gustavo Envela		10.79
6	Oumar Fye		10.87
7	Anthony Henry		10.99
8	Saidur Rahman Dawn		11.25

Heat 9

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.58
2	Luis Morales		10.60
3	Nelson dos Santos		10.70
4	Ralf Lübke		10.70
5	Collins Mensah		10.92
6	Ivan Benjamin		11.13
7	Johnson Kere		11.57

Heat 10

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.57
2	Dudley Parker		10.65
3	Kouadio Otokpa		10.72
4	Pierfrancesco Pavoni		10.72
5	Faraj Saad Marzouk		10.78
6	Odiya Silweya		11.22
7	Glen Abrahams		11.31

Heat 11

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.41
2	Alfonso Pitters		10.50
3	Katsuhiko Nakaya		10.55
4	Bakary Jarjue		10.68
5	Sim Deok-seop		10.72
6	Guy Hill		11.11
7	Aldo Salandra		11.31

Quarterfinals

The top three runners in each of the five heats and the next fastest one, advanced to the semifinal round.

Quarterfinal 1

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.41
2	Donovan Reid		10.47
3	Christian Haas		10.51
4	Hasely Crawford		10.56
5	Antonio Ullo		10.57
6	Bruno Marie-Rose		10.60
7	Paul Narracott		10.60
8	Alfonso Pitters		10.63

Quarterfinal 2

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.15
2	Tony Sharpe		10.33
3	Norman Edwards		10.44
4	Nelson dos Santos		10.53
5	Charles-Louis Seck		10.54
6	Yu Zhuanghui		10.59
7	Neville Hodge		10.69
data-sort-value=8	—

Quarterfinal 3

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.39
2	Ron Brown		10.40
3	Marc Gasparoni		10.56
4	Sumet Promna		10.61
5	Katsuhiko Nakaya		10.69
6	Hiroki Fuwa		10.75
7	Philip Attipoe		10.78
8	Kouadio Otokpa		10.80

Quarterfinal 4

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.30
2	Allan Wells		10.33
3	Mohamed Purnomo		10.43
4	José Javier Arqués		10.52
	Peter Van Miltenburg		10.52
6	Antoine Richard		10.53
7	Paulo Roberto Correia		10.54
8	Audrick Lightbourne		10.59

Quarterfinal 5

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.04
2	Desai Williams		10.27
3	Luis Morales		10.35
4	Mike McFarlane		10.36
5	Chidi Imoh		10.42
6	Dudley Parker		10.58
7	Fred Martin		10.61
8	Jürgen Evers		10.69

Semifinals

The top four runners in each of the two heats advanced to the final round.

Semifinal 1

The wind was +0.7 m/s.

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.26
2	Sam Graddy		10.27
3	Donovan Reid		10.32
4	Ron Brown		10.34
5	Desai Williams		10.34
6	Christian Haas		10.41
7	Marc Gasparoni		10.49
8	Mohamed Purnomo		10.51

Semifinal 2

The wind was -1.5 m/s.

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.14
2	Ben Johnson		10.42
3	Mike McFarlane		10.45
4	Tony Sharpe		10.52
5	Luis Morales		10.54
6	Stefano Tilli		10.55
7	Norman Edwards		10.63
8	Allan Wells		10.71

Final

Wind = 0.2 m/s

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
			9.99
			10.19
			10.22
4			10.26
5			10.27
6			10.29
7			10.33
8			10.35

See also

• Athletics at the Friendship Games – Men's 100 metres

Notes and References

1. Web site: Athletics at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games: Men's 100 metres . https://web.archive.org/web/20200417094605/https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/summer/1984/ATH/mens-100-metres.html . dead . 17 April 2020 . 4 July 2017 . Sports Reference.
2. Web site: 100 metres, Men . Olympedia . 24 July 2020.
3. Official Report, vol. 2, pp. 270–71.