Athletics at the 1948 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon


The men's marathon event at the 1948 Summer Olympic Games took place August 7. The race was won by Delfo Cabrera. Reminiscent of Dorando Pietri's final-lap ordeal when the Olympics were held in the same city 40 years earlier, Belgian Étienne Gailly entered the London stadium in first place, but was exhausted and running very slowly. He was passed first by Cabrera, then by Briton Tom Richards, but managed to hold on for the bronze medal. South African Johannes Coleman, who finished 4th in this race, had placed 6th in the last Olympic marathon in Berlin twelve years earlier.

Records

Prior to this event, the existing Olympic record stood as follows.
Olympic record2:29:19.2Berlin, Germany9 August 1936

Schedule

All times are British Summer Time
DateTimeRound
Saturday, 7 August 194815:00Final

Results

RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
Delfo Cabrera2:34:51.6
Tom Richards2:35:07.6
Étienne Gailly2:35:33.6
4Johannes Coleman2:36:06.0
5Eusebio Guiñez2:36:36.0
6Syd Luyt2:38:11.0
7Gustav Östling2:38:40.6
8John Systad2:38:41.0
9Alberto Sensini2:39:30.0
10Henning Larsen2:41:22.0
11Viljo Heino2:41:32.0
12Anders Melin2:42:20.0
13Jussi Kurikkala2:42:48.0
14Ted Vogel2:45:27.0
15Enrique Inostroza2:47:48.0
16Lloyd Evans2:48:07.0
17Gérard Côté2:48:31.0
18Stylianos Kyriakides2:49:00.0
19József Kiss2:50:20.0
20Şevki Koru2:51:07.0
21Johnny Kelley2:51:56.0
22Kaspar Schiesser2:52:09.0
23Walter Fedorick2:52:12.0
24Ollie Manninen2:56:49.0
25Hong Jong-o2:56:54.0
26Paddy Mulvihill2:57:35.0
27Suh Yun-bok2:59:36.0
28Sven Håkansson3:00:09.0
29Jakob Jutz3:03:55.0
30Stan Jones3:09:16.0
Salvatore ConstantinoDNF
Pierre CousinDNF
Hans FrischknechtDNF
Mikko HietanenDNF
Jack HoldenDNF
René JossetDNF
Lou Wen-ngauDNF
Arsène PiessetDNF
Athanasios RagazosDNF
Chhota SinghDNF
Choi Yun-chilDNF

Key: DNF = Did not finish