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


The men's 100 metres sprint event at the 1984 Olympic Games took place between August 3 and August 4. Eighty-two athletes from 59 countries participated. 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. Canada's Ben Johnson took bronze to break up the Americans' bid to sweep the podium ; 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 quaduple. 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.
Thirteen nations appeared in the event for the first time: Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh, the British Virgin Islands, China, 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.

Records

These are the standing world and Olympic records prior to the 1980 Summer Olympics.
World Record9.93 Calvin SmithColorado Springs July 3, 1983
Olympic Record9.95 Jim HinesMexico City 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

Heat 2

Heat 3

Heat 4

Heat 5

Heat 6

Heat 7

Heat 8

Heat 9

Heat 10

Heat 11

Quarterfinals

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

Quarterfinal 1

Quarterfinal 2

Quarterfinal 3

Quarterfinal 4

Quarterfinal 5

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.
RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Ray Stewart10.26
2Sam Graddy10.27
3Donovan Reid10.32
4Ron Brown10.34
5Desai Williams10.34
6Christian Haas10.41
7Marc Gasparoni10.49
8Mohamed Purnomo10.51

Semifinal 2

The wind was -1.5 m/s.
RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Carl Lewis10.14
2Ben Johnson10.42
3Mike McFarlane10.45
4Tony Sharpe10.52
5Luis Morales10.54
6Stefano Tilli10.55
7Norman Edwards10.63
8Allan Wells10.71

Final

Wind = 0.2 m/s
RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
Carl Lewis9.99
Sam Graddy10.19
Ben Johnson10.22
4Ron Brown10.26
5Mike McFarlane10.27
6Ray Stewart10.29
7Donovan Reid10.33
8Tony Sharpe10.35