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


The men's 800 metres middle distance event at the 1960 Olympic Games took place between August 31 and September 2.
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.

Results

Heats

The fastest three runners in each of the nine heats advanced to the quarterfinal round.
Heat one
RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
1Donal Smith1:51.86
2Valery Bulyshev1:51.83
3Zbigniew Makomaski1:52.70
4Brian Hewson1:54.73
5Yair Pantilat1:54.86
6George Johnson1:56.04

Heat two
RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
1Tom Farrell1:49.05
2Jerry Siebert1:49.08
3Jos Lambrechts1:49.24
4Pierre-Yvon Lenoir1:49.41
5Jaromír Šlégr1:50.23
6Moussa Said1:50.49

Heat three
RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
1Peter Snell1:48.22
2Christian Wägli1:48.88
3Ernie Cunliffe1:48.95
4István Rózsavölgyi1:49.51

Heat four
RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
1Tony Blue1:50.82
2Ergas Leps1:50.93
3Manfred Matuschewski1:51.17
4Vasily Savinkov1:51.49
5Konstantinos Moragiemos1:54.60
6Ahmed Lazreg1:55.91

Heat five
RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
1Abram Kryvosheiev1:53.49
2Jörg Balke1:53.72
3John Wenk1:54.27
4Norbert Haupert1:54.83
5Frederick Owusu1:55.41
6Egon Oehri2:00.49

Heat six
RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
1Roger Moens1:50.73
2Per Knuts1:51.36
3Lajos Kovács1:51.45
4Stefan Lewandowski1:51.75
5Svavar Markússon1:52.88
6Abdeslem Dargouth1:54.87

Heat seven
RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
1George Kerr1:51.11
2Terry Sullivan1:51.26
3Péter Parsch1:51.34
4Borut Ingolič1:51.51
5Pertti Ålander1:52.20
6Zbigniew Orywał1:55.89

Heat eight
RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
1Paul Schmidt1:50.97
2Rudolf Klaban1:50.96
3Ronnie Delany1:51.19
4Joe Mullins1:51.46
5Gianfranco Baraldi1:52.15
6Julio Gómez1:53.90
7Somsakdi Tongaram1:57.24

Heat nine
RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
1Tom Murphy1:52.30
2Ralph Gomes1:53.06
3Ekrem Koçak1:59.12
4Sig Ohlemann2:07.40

Quarterfinals

The fastest three runners in each of the four heats advanced to the semifinal round.
Heat one
RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
1Tom Murphy1:48.12
2Christian Wägli1:48.15
3Manfred Matuschewski1:48.24
4Donal Smith1:48.52
5Terry Sullivan1:50.01

Heat two
RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
1Paul Schmidt1:51.38
2Abram Krivosheyev1:51.40
3Jerry Siebert1:51.53
4Zbigniew Makomaski1:51.72
5Ralph Gomes1:52.47
6Lajos Kovács1:52.55
7Per Knuts1:52.91

Heat three
RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
1George Kerr1:49.58
2Ernie Cunliffe1:49.83
3Tony Blue1:50.05
4John Wenk1:50.13
5Valery Bulyshev1:50.74
6Ronnie Delany151.42

Heat four
RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
1Roger Moens1:48.69
2Peter Snell1:48.84
3Jörg Balke1:48.98
4Rudolf Klaban1:50.32
5Tom Farrell1:50.84
6Ergas Leps1:52.13
7Ekrem Koçak1:52.66

Semifinals

The fastest three runners in each of the two heats advanced to the final round.
Heat one
RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
1George Kerr1:47.26OR
2Christian Wägli1:47.40
3Manfred Matuschewski1:47.54
4Jörg Balke1:47.63
5Tony Blue1:47.97
6Tom Murphy1:48.29

Heat two
RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
1Peter Snell1:47.34
2Roger Moens1:47.49
3Paul Schmidt1:47.95
4Jerry Siebert1:48.20
5Abram Krivosheyev1:48.25
6Ernie Cunliffe1:50.92

Final

RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
Peter Snell1:46.48OR
Roger Moens1:46.55
George Kerr1:47.25
4Paul Schmidt1:47.82
5Christian Wägli1:48.19
6Manfred Matuschewski1:52.21

Key: OR = Olympic record