Markus Ryffel (born 5 February 1955 in Bern) is a former long-distance runner from Switzerland who won the silver medal in the 5000 metres at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
He set the Swiss record at 13:07.54 min.[1] He also won a silver medal at the 1978 European Championships in Athletics, sharing it with the Soviet Union's Alexander Fedotkin; they both lost just one-tenth of a second to Italy's Venanzio Ortis.[2] Between these two major championships medals, Ryffel had a rather varying success as a 5,000-metre runner. In the 1980 Moscow Olympics, he placed fifth in that distance, losing to the winner, Ethiopia's Miruts Yifter, by 2.1 seconds.[3] He ran significantly worse in the 1982 European Athletics Championships in Athens and in the 1983 World Athletics Championships in Helsinki, Finland, placing only tenth and twelfth, respectively.[4] [5] Ryffel's final few years as a competitive runner, after the Los Angeles Olympics, were also rather undistinguished. He placed third in a time of slightly over 14 minutes at 5,000 metres in the European Athletics Cup's B final in Budapest in 1985. In the 1986 European Athletics Championships, he dropped out of the 5,000-metre final. In his last major international championships, the 1987 World Athletics Championships, he placed well outside the top ten runners at 10,000 metres and was eliminated in the 5,000-metre qualifying heats.[6]
1500m: 3:38.60Mile: 3:58.052000m: 4:59.543000m: 7:41.005000m: 13:07.5410000m: 27:54.29[7]