Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's 100 metres explained

Event:	Women's 100 metres
Games:	2012 Summer
Venue:	Olympic Stadium
Date:	3–4 August
Competitors:	79
Nations:	67
Gold:	Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce
Goldnoc:	JAM
Silver:	Carmelita Jeter
Silvernoc:	USA
Bronze:	Veronica Campbell Brown
Bronzenoc:	JAM
Win Value:	10.75
Longnames:	yes
Prev:	2008
Next:	2016

The women's 100 metres competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom was held at the Olympic Stadium on 3–4 August.^[1] The winning margin was 0.03 seconds.

In the preliminary round, Toea Wisil was the most impressive, winning with a relaxed 11.60 into a -1.6 mps wind, while Noor Hussain Al-Malki's Olympic experience lasted just the first steps out of the blocks before she pulled up. Qualifying into the next rounds, Wisil beat triple world champion Allyson Felix and the rest of her heat out of the blocks and came with in .05 of reaching the semi-final round, from the previously unqualified preliminary round. Carmelita Jeter ran hard for her second best time of the season to lead the round. Her training partner Blessing Okagbare left an impression by outrunning Tianna Madison for the second best time. Defending champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce exerted minimal effort to secure the fourth best qualifying time.

The semi-final round qualifiers was virtual mirror image of the previous evening's heats, the same top athletes with Jeter again posting a 10.83 and 11.01 the number 8 time. Ezinne Okparaebo's Norwegian national record 11.10 left her two places out of qualifying.

In the final, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce led from the gun. She was quickest from the blocks with Jeter in close pursuit, and she ultimately leaned at the finish line for a narrow victory to defend her title. Veronica Campbell Brown added to her career medal haul with the bronze medal.

Jeter's time was the fastest non-winning time in Olympic history. In fact, all non-winning places 2-4 were the fastest for that place. This was the second race in history to place 5 runners under 10.90 (the other being the 1992 Olympic final). Only the third in history to place two under 10.80 (the others being the 1999 World Championships and the 2009 World Championships 100m final).^[2]

Competition format

The women's 100 m competition started with a preliminary round consisting of athletes who did not achieve the minimum qualifying standards.^[3] The top ten competitors from the preliminary round then joined the remaining competitors in the next round, the heats. The top 3 fastest competitors from each race of the seven heats qualified for the semifinals along with the three fastest overall non-qualifiers. A total of eight competitors qualified for the final from the semifinals.

Records

, the existing World and Olympic records were as follows.

World record	10.49	Indianapolis, United States	16 July 1988
Olympic record	10.62	Seoul, Korea	24 September 1988
2012 World leading	10.70	Kingston, Jamaica	29 June 2012

Schedule

All times are British Summer Time (UTC+1)

Date	Time	Round
Friday, 3 August 2012	10:40 19:05	Preliminaries Round 1
style=background:lemonchiffon	Saturday, 4 August 2012	style=background:lemonchiffon	19:35 21:55	style=background:lemonchiffon	Semifinals Finals

Results

Preliminaries

^[4]

Qual. rule: first 2 of each heat (Q) plus the 2 fastest times (q) qualified.

Preliminary heat 1

Rank	Time	Notes
1	11.81
2	11.91
3	12.24	,
4	12.29
5	12.52
6	12.66
7	13.25
8	13.61
	Wind: +0.9 m/s

Preliminary heat 2

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			11.71
2			11.81
3			12.00
4			12.45
5			12.78
6			12.81
7			13.48
8			13.95
			Wind: −0.2 m/s

Preliminary heat 3

Rank	Athlete	Time
1		11.87
2		12.02
3		12.47
4		12.80
5		12.90
6		13.15
7		13.34
data-sort-value=8	–
		Wind: +0.2 m/s

Preliminary heat 4

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			11.60
2			12.21
3			12.41
4			12.72
5			13.24
6			13.33
7			13.60
8			13.67
9			14.42
			Wind: –1.6 m/s

Heats

81 entrants as of 27 July 2012.^[5]

Qual. rule: first 3 of each heat (Q) plus the 3 fastest times (q) qualified.

Heat 1

Rank	Time	Notes
1	10.96
2	11.07	,
3	11.12
4	11.14	,
5	11.43
6	11.49
7	11.59
8	11.98
	Wind: +0.4 m/s

Heat 2

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.83
2			11.31
3			11.35
4			11.38
5			11.41
6			11.42
7			11.70
8			11.92
			Wind: +1.5 m/s

Heat 3

Wind:
Heat 3: +1.5 m/s

Rank	Time	Notes
1	10.94
2	11.06	,
3	11.13	,
4	11.19	,
5	11.22
6	11.52
7	11.56
8	12.06
	Wind: +1.5 m/s

Heat 4

Rank	Time	Notes
1	10.93	,
2	10.97
3	11.28
4	11.39
5	11.44
6	11.62
7	11.86
8	11.90
	Wind: +0.7 m/s

Heat 5

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			11.01
2			11.07
3			11.14
4			11.27
5			11.41
5			11.41
5			11.41
8			11.81
			Wind: +2.2 m/s

Heat 6

Rank	Time	Notes
1	11.00
2	11.04	,
3	11.18
4	11.22
5	11.32
6	11.34
7	11.48
8	12.35
	Wind: +1.5 m/s

Heat 7

Rank	Time	Notes
1	10.99	,
2	11.07	,
3	11.08
4	11.36
5	11.46
6	11.63
7	11.82
8	11.89
	Wind: +1.3 m/s

Semifinals

Qual. rule: first 2 of each heat (Q) plus the 2 fastest times (q) qualified.

Semifinal 1

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.83
2			10.89
3			11.17
4			11.22
5			11.26
6			11.30
7			11.31
8			11.36
			Wind: ±0.0 m/s

Semifinal 2

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1			10.85
2			10.94
3			11.00
4			11.10
5			11.21
6			11.31
7			11.32
8			11.39
			Wind: +1.2 m/s

Semifinal 3

Rank	Time	Notes
1	10.92	,
2	10.92
3	11.01
4	11.04
5	11.13
6	11.25
7	11.30
8	11.32
	Wind: +1.0 m/s

Final

Rank	Lane	Time
	7	10.75
	5	10.78
	4	10.81
4	9	10.85
5	8	10.89
6	2	10.94
7	3	11.00
8	6	11.01
		Wind: +1.5 m/s

Notes and References

http://www.olympic.org/olympic-results/london-2012/athletics/100m-w Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Web site: 100 Metres – women – senior – outdoor.
Web site: 100m competition format. London 2012 Organising Committee. 12 June 2012. 11 December 2012. https://archive.today/20121211070333/www.london2012.com/athletics/event/women-100m/index.html. dead.
Web site: Women's 100m: Preliminaries. London 2012. 2012-08-05. 2013-05-31. https://web.archive.org/web/20130531200307/http://www.london2012.com/athletics/event/women-100m/phase=atw001p00/doc=standing.html. dead.
http://www.iaaf.org/mm/Document/06/61/86/66186_PDF_English.pdf Entry List by Event