Athletics at the 1996 Summer Olympics – Men's 100 metres explained

Event:Men's 100 metres
Games:1996 Summer
Venue:Centennial Olympic Stadium
Date:July 26–27
Competitors:106
Nations:75
Win Value:9.84
Longnames:yes
Gold:Donovan Bailey
Goldnoc:CAN
Silver:Frank Fredericks
Silvernoc:NAM
Bronze:Ato Boldon
Bronzenoc:TRI
Prev:1992
Next:2000

These are the official results of the men's 100 metres event at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. There were a total number of 106 participating athletes from 75 nations, with twelve heats in round 1, five quarterfinals, two semifinals and a final.[1] Each nation was limited to 3 athletes per rules in force since the 1930 Olympic Congress. The event was won by Donovan Bailey of Canada, the nation's first title in the event since Percy Williams won it in 1928.

Summary

Canada's Donovan Bailey won the gold medal, breaking the world record that Leroy Burrell of the United States had set in 1994. Namibia's Frankie Fredericks won the silver medal for a second consecutive Olympics, while Trinidad and Tobago sprinter Ato Boldon won the bronze. It was Trinidad and Tobago's first medal in the event since Hasely Crawford's win in 1976. For Fredericks and Boldon, this was the first of two events where they both medaled behind a world record setting run; Fredericks took silver and Boldon bronze in the 200 metre event where Michael Johnson ran 19.32 to win.

At first Bailey who was going to be the eventual winner did not get a great start. Mitchell and Boldon got terrific starts. Boldon led the race till the 60 metre mark, the point where Canadian Donovan Bailey was gaining on the field. He had an unbelievable surge with a top end speed of over 12 m/s, world record at that time. He won the race with a new 100 metres men's world record time of 9.84 which was 100th of a second faster than the previous record. Fredericks of Namibia edged past Boldon of Trinidad to take silver. Linford Christie, the defending Olympic Champion, was watching the entire event unfold from the point of view of a spectator, having been disqualified after two false starts, the second of which was controversial.[2]

This marked the first time since 1976 (and the boycotted 1980 Games) that no American runner medaled in the 100 metres, with 1992 bronze medalist Dennis Mitchell placing fourth behind Boldon. Counting 1980, it was only the fourth time that the United States missed the podium.

Background

This was the twenty-third time the event was held, having appeared at every Olympics since the first in 1896. For the first time, all three medalists from the previous Games (Great Britain's Linford Christie, Namibia's Frankie Fredericks, and the United States's Dennis Mitchell) returned. Indeed, seven of the eight finalists from 1992 were back in 1996—the other returners were Canadian Bruny Surin, Nigerians Olapade Adeniken and Davidson Ezinwa, and Jamaican Raymond Stewart; only Leroy Burrell did not return to the 100 metres in 1996. Donovan Bailey of Canada had won the 1995 world championships, followed by countryman Surin and then Trinidad and Tobago's Ato Boldon. Christie was the reigning Commonwealth and European champion, and had won the 1993 world championship.[1]

Azerbaijan, Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, São Tomé and Príncipe, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan appeared in the event for the first time. Russia appeared independently for the first time since 1912 and Latvia did so for the first time since 1924. The United States made its 22nd 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 heats and quarterfinals.

The first round consisted of 12 heats, each with 9 athletes scheduled (2 heats had 8 actually run due to withdrawals). The top three runners in each heat advanced, along with the next four 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.[1] [3]

Records

These were the standing world and Olympic records (in seconds) prior to the 1996 Summer Olympics.

World Record9.85 Leroy BurrellLausanne (SUI)July 6, 1994
Olympic Record9.92 Carl LewisSeoul (KOR)September 24, 1988

Donovan Bailey's 9.84 seconds in the final broke both the world and Olympic records.

Schedule

All times are Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-4)

DateTimeRound
Friday, 26 July 1996 11:00
18:30		Heats
Quarterfinals
style=background:lemonchiffonSaturday, 27 July 1996 style=background:lemonchiffon19:30
21:00		style=background:lemonchiffonSemifinals
Final

Results

Round 1

Heat 1

Wells had one false start (a second would have resulted in disqualification).

RankLaneAthleteNationReactionTimeNotes
1 6Emmanuel Tuffour0.18710.15
2 5Bruny Surin0.16810.18
3 2Andrey Fedoriv0.15910.39
4 1Renward Wells0.15610.48
5 3Chithaka De Soyza0.17310.55
6 7Luís Cunha0.14910.65
7 9Patrick Mocci Roumbe0.18510.87
8 8Nordine Ould Menira0.18610.95
9 4Bonifacio Edu0.19811.87
Wind: −0.9 m/s

Heat 2

RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes
1 1Davidson Ezinwa10.03
2 2Jon Drummond10.08
3 9Erik Wymeersch10.24
4 5Leon Gordon10.48
5 6Stefan Burkart10.49
6 7Barnabe Jolicoeur10.57
7 4Bimal Tarafdar10.98
8 3Abdul Ghafoor12.20
– 8Andrew Tynes

Heat 3

Markoullides had one false start (a second would have resulted in disqualification).

RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes
1 5Ato Boldon10.06
2 7Anninos Markoullides10.26
3 2Kim Collins10.27
4 8Augustine Nketia10.34
5 4Raymond Stewart10.38
6 9Stefano Tilli10.38
7 6Jamal Al-Saffar10.44
8 3Amarildo Almeida10.85
9 1Mohamed Bakar11.02

Heat 4

RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes
1 7Michael Green10.16
2 9Patrick Stevens10.21
3 8Serhiy Osovych10.29
4 1Ezio Madonia10.33
5 2Edson Ribeiro10.39
6 3Chris Donaldson10.39
7 5Patrik Strenius10.48
8 4Toluta'u Koula10.71
9 6Vladislav Chernobay10.88

Heat 5

Borrega had one false start (a second would have resulted in disqualification).

RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes
1 2Deji Aliu10.34
2 8Ousmane Diarra10.34
3 3Wenzhong Chen10.37
4 6Manuel Borrega10.52
5 7Hiroyasu Tsuchie10.58
6 9Ruben Benitez10.74
7 1Vitaly Medvedev10.90
8 4Mitchell Peters11.12
9 5Bouriema Kimba11.24

Heat 6

RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes
1 4Dennis Mitchell10.24
2 7Ian Mackie10.27
3 3Marc Blume10.33
4 9Alexandros Terzian10.48
5 1Franck Amegnigan10.51
6 6Rod Mapstone10.56
7 8Sayon Cooper10.58
8 2Pa Modou Gai10.72
9 5Jorge Castellon10.74

Heat 7

RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes
1 1Obadele Thompson10.33
2 5Kostyantyn Rurak10.37
3 9Pascal Theophile10.41
4 2Carlos Gats10.57
5 3Joel Mascoll10.64
6 6Anvar Kuchmuradov10.71
7 4Arif Akhundov11.11
8 8Khaled Othman11.65
9 7Jean-Olivier Zirignon22.69

Heat 8

Silva had one false start (a second would have resulted in disqualification).

RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes
1 7Michael Marsh10.14
2 8Darren Braithwaite10.29
3 9Kirk Cummins10.47
4 5Torbjörn Eriksson10.49
5 6Paul Henderson10.52
6 3Alberto Mendez10.60
7 2Arnaldo da Silva10.62
8 1Mario Bonello10.89
9 4Odair Baia11.05

Heat 9

Douhou had one false start (a second would have resulted in disqualification).

RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes
1 8André da Silva10.25
2 5Linford Christie10.26
3 6Yiannis Zisimides10.32
4 1Venancio Jose10.34
5 9Hamed Douhou10.53
6 7Robert Dennis10.65
7 2Donald Onchiri10.66
8 3Sun-Kuk Jin10.73
9 4Peter Pulu10.76

Heat 10

RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes
1 5Eric Nkansah10.26
2 2Needy Guims10.39
3 1Olapade Adeniken10.41
4 7Jone Delai10.42
5 8Vitaliy Savin10.52
6 9Watson Nyambek10.55
7 6Neil Ryan10.78
8 3Javier Verne10.91
9 4Van Lam Hai11.14

Heat 11

Karlsson had one false start (a second would have resulted in disqualification).

RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes
1 3Donovan Bailey10.24
2 1Nobuharu Asahara10.28
3 2Peter Karlsson10.35
4 6Sanusi Turay10.39
5 9Sergejs Insakovs10.42
6 8Haralambos Papadias10.46
7 7Hsin-Ping Huang10.70
8 4Eric Agueh10.98
– 5Alfayaya Embalo

Heat 12

RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes
1 4Frank Fredericks10.32
2 1Glenroy Gilbert10.34
3 3Alexandros Yenovelis10.39
4 6Frutos Feo10.56
5 8Benjamin Sirimou10.58
6 7Hamed Sadeq10.81
7 9Devon Bean10.89
8 5Robert Loua11.21
9 2Mark Sherwin11.41

Quarterfinals

Quarterfinal 1

RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes
1 5Ato Boldon9.95
2 3Nobuharu Asahara10.19
3 6Eric Nkansah10.24
4 4Deji Aliu10.26
5 7Glenroy Gilbert10.28
6 8Marc Blume10.33
7 1Andrey Fedoriv10.34
8 2Augustine Nketia10.35

Quarterfinal 2

RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes
1 6Linford Christie10.03
2 5Donovan Bailey10.05
3 3Jon Drummond10.17
4 4Emmanuel Tuffour10.18
5 2Erik Wymeersch10.37
6 7Olapade Adeniken10.38
7 8Needy Guims10.43
8 1Ezio Madonia10.43

Quarterfinal 3

RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes
1 5Frank Fredericks9.93
2 3Davidson Ezinwa10.08
3 4Obadele Thompson10.14
4 8Raymond Stewart10.18
5 7Peter Karlsson10.24
6 6Darren Braithwaite10.27
7 2Wenzhong Chen10.29
8 1Ousmane Diarra10.38

Quarterfinal 4

RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes
1 6Dennis Mitchell10.09
2 3Michael Green10.11
3 4Anninos Markoullides10.23
4 5Patrick Stevens10.31
5 2Kim Collins10.34
6 1Pascal Theophile10.38
7 7Serhiy Osovych10.38
8 8Kirk Cummins10.45

Quarterfinal 5

RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes
1 6Michael Marsh10.04
2 4Bruny Surin10.13
3 5Ian Mackie10.25
4 3André da Silva10.26
5 2Alexandros Yenovelis10.31
6 1Venancio Jose10.46
7 7Kostyantyn Rurak10.47
8 8Yiannis Zisimides10.47

Semifinals

Semifinal 1

Bailey had one false start (a second would have resulted in disqualification).

RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes
1 5Frank Fredericks9.94
2 3Donovan Bailey10.00
3 6Michael Marsh10.08
4 4Michael Green10.11
5 1Nobuharu Asahara10.16
6 8Obadele Thompson10.16
7 2Emmanuel Tuffour10.22
8 7Anninos Markoullides10.36

Semifinal 2

RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes
1 3Ato Boldon9.93
2 5Dennis Mitchell10.00
3 6Linford Christie10.04
4 4Davidson Ezinwa10.04
5 1Bruny Surin10.13
6 2Jon Drummond10.16
7 8Eric Nkansah10.26
– 7Ian Mackie

Final

The final was held on July 27, 1996. Christie was disqualified after two false starts. Boldon also had one false start.[4]

RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes
6Donovan Bailey9.84
5Frank Fredericks9.89
3Ato Boldon9.90
4 4Dennis Mitchell9.99
5 1Michael Marsh10.00
6 7Davidson Ezinwa10.14
7 8Michael Green10.16
— 2Linford Christie

References

Notes and References

  1. Web site: 100 metres, Men . Olympedia . 24 July 2020.
  2. News: Chaotic 100 Meters Ends with Record . The New York Times . 29 July 1996 . Thomsen . Ian .
  3. Official Report, vol. 3, pp. 68–69.
  4. Official Report, vol. 3, p. 69.

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