Athletics at the 1960 Summer Olympics – Men's 100 metres


The men's 100 metres was an event at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy. The competition was held at the Olympic Stadium on 31 August and 1 September. Sixty-five competitors from 48 nations entered, but 61 competitors from 45 nations participated. Nations were limited to three athletes each under rules set at the 1930 Olympic Congress. The event was won by Armin Hary of the United Team of Germany, breaking the United States's streak of five straight wins and earning the first Olympic title by a German runner in the event.

Summary

Since winning the 1958 European Championship, Armin Hary was a known commodity. His incredible reaction time supposedly had been clocked using high speed cameras at.03 of a second, while normal humans react from.15 upward. Some of his competitors thought he was using some sort of trickery.
Along with Enrique Figuerola asking for a pause, the proceedings to start this 10 second race took 20 minutes. Hary's incredible reaction to the gun and sprint form through the acceleration phase has been studied for generations, needless to say it put him in the lead, on the outside of the track in lane 6, putting nearly a 2-metre gap on Peter Radford to his inside. Dave Sime was the slowest out of the blocks with a deficit to make up across the track from Hary in lane 1. But make up the deficit he did, gaining with every step, passing the field by 70 metres and gaining until he was virtually running stride for stride against Hary at the line. Hary held Sime off, leaning at the tape to take the gold. With the fastest closing speed over the last 20 metres, Radford made up a big gap, to take the slight edge over Figueola and Frank Budd all finishing together.
Later, as a professor of sports science, Radford said he thinks he figured out the "tell" Hary used to anticipate the gun.
Hary ran representing EUA, a combined team of German athletes from East and West Germany.

Background

This was the fourteenth time the event was held, having appeared at every Olympics since the first in 1896. Manfred Germar, 5th place in 1956, was the only finalist from the Melbourne Games to return in 1960. Notable entrants, along with Hary and Germar, were Americans Ray Norton, Dave Sime, and Frank Budd, and Canada's Harry Jerome.
The British West Indies, Fiji, Kenya, Morocco, South Korea, and Sudan were represented in the event for the first time. The United States was the only nation to have appeared at each of the first fourteen Olympic men's 100 metres events.

Competition format

The event retained the same basic four round format from 1920–1956: heats, quarterfinals, semifinals, and a final. However, the format was tweaked for the first time since 1936. The number of heats was reduced from 12 to 9, with the number of runners advancing from each heat increased from 2 to 3. This led to 27 quarterfinalists, so the 4 quarterfinal heats were now unbalanced: one had 6 athletes while the other three had 7. As before, however, the top 3 in each quarterfinal advanced to the semifinals. There were 2 heats of 6 semifinalists, once again with the top 3 advancing to the 6-man final.

Records

Prior to the competition, the existing World and Olympic records were as follows.
World record10.0 Armin HaryZürich, Switzerland21 June 1960
World record10.0 Harry JeromeSaskatoon, Canada15 July 1960
Olympic record10.3 Eddie TolanLos Angeles, USA1 August 1932
Olympic record10.3 Ralph MetcalfeLos Angeles, USA1 August 1932
Olympic record10.3 Jesse OwensBerlin, Germany2 August 1936
Olympic record10.3 Harrison DillardLondon, United Kingdom31 July, 1948
Olympic record10.3 Bobby MorrowMelbourne, Australia23 November 1956
Olympic record10.3 Ira MurchisonMelbourne, Australia23 November 1956
Olympic record10.3 Bobby MorrowMelbourne, Australia24 November 1956

Armin Hary broke the 28-year-old Olympic record with a 10.2 second run in the quarterfinals. He matched that 10.2 second result in the final.

Results

Heats

The top three runners in each of the 9 heats advanced.

Heat one

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Enrique Figuerola10.4
2Carl Fredrik Bunæs10.7
3Yuriy Konovalov10.7
4Suthi Manyakass10.8
5Mikhail Bachvarov11.0
6Amos Grodzinowsky11.1
7Raj Joshi Tilak11.3

Heat two

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Seraphino Antao10.5
2Armin Hary10.6
3Heinz Müller10.8
4Gustav Ntiforo11.0
5Isaac Gómez11.0
6Dennis Tipping11.2
7Abdul Khaliq11.2

Heat three

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Horacio Esteves10.4
2Dennis Johnson10.4
3Dave Sime10.5
4Lynn Eves10.8
5Aggrey Awori10.9
6Patrick Lowry10.9
7Roba Negousse11.3

Heat four

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Harry Jerome10.5
2Jocelyn Delecour10.5
3Erasmus Amukun10.6
4Affonso da Silva10.8
5Bouchaib El-Maachi10.9
6Shahrudin Mohamed Ali10.9
-James Omagbemi

Heat five

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Tom Robinson10.5
2Lloyd Murad10.7
3Sitiveni Moceidreke10.8
4George Short10.9
5Emmanuel Putu11.2
6Kim Jong-cheol11.5

Heat six

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Ray Norton10.7
2Gusman Kosanov10.7
3Santiago Plaza10.8
4Walter Mahlendorf10.8
5Romain Poté11.0
6Aydin Onur11.3
7Abdul Hadi Shekaib11.6

Heat seven

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1David Jones10.5
2Abdoulaye Seye10.6
3Rafael Romero10.7
4Elmar Kunauer11.0
5Huang Suh-chuang11.2
6Khudhir Zalata11.3
-Iftikhar Shah

Heat eight

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Marian Foik10.5
2Edward Jefferys10.6
3Claude Piquemal10.7
4Jalal Gozal10.9
5Manfred Germar11.0
6Hamdan El-Tayeb11.1
7José Albarrán11.2

Heat nine

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Peter Radford10.4
2Frank Budd10.4
3Edvin Ozolin10.7
4Hilmar Thorbjörnsson10.9
5Nikolaos Georgopoulos11.0
6Moustafa Abdel Kader11.2
7James Roberts11.2

Quarterfinal

The top three runners in each of the four heats advanced to the semifinals.

Quarterfinal one

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Horacio Esteves10.5
2Tom Robinson10.6
3Ray Norton10.6
4Jocelyn Delecour10.7
5Edward Jefferys10.7
6Edvin Ozolin10.7
7Heinz Müller10.8

Quarterfinal two

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Armin Hary10.2,
2Dave Sime10.3
3Marian Foik10.4
4Dennis Johnson10.4
5Carl Fredrik Bunæs10.5
6Yuriy Konovalov10.5
7Sitiveni Moceidreke10.7

Quarterfinal three

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Frank Budd10.4
2Enrique Figuerola10.4
3David Jones10.5
4Erasmus Amukun10.6
5Claude Piquemal10.6
6Gusman Kosanov10.7
7Santiago Plaza10.8

Quarterfinal four

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Harry Jerome10.4
2Peter Radford10.4
3Seraphino Antao10.4
4Abdoulaye Seye10.4
5Lloyd Murad10.8
6Rafael Romero11.1

Semifinals

The top three runners in each of the two semifinals advanced to the final.

Semifinal one

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Peter Radford10.4
2Enrique Figuerola10.4
3Frank Budd10.5
4Marian Foik10.5
5Tom Robinson10.5
-Harry Jerome

Semifinal two

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Armin Hary10.3
2Dave Sime10.4
3Ray Norton10.4
4David Jones10.4
5Horacio Esteves10.5
6Seraphino Antao10.6

Final

and Dave Sime tied the Olympic record.
RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
Armin Hary10.2
Dave Sime10.2
Peter Radford10.3
4Enrique Figuerola10.3
5Frank Budd10.3
6Ray Norton10.4