Athletics at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Men's 10,000 metres


The men's 10,000 metres event at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich was held on 31 August and 3 September. This event featured a qualifying round for the first time since the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp. The favorites in the event included Belgium's Emiel Puttemans, Great Britain's Dave Bedford, and Finland's Lasse Virén.
The men's 10,000 metres final was notable for Lasse Virén's world record performance. At the start of the race, Bedford led the pace; he maintained a world record pace at the 4000 m mark, and he still led halfway through the race. On the 12th lap, just before the halfway point, Virén and Tunisia's Mohammed Gammoudi, 10,000 m bronze medalist and 5000 m gold medalist in the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, tangled into each other and fell onto the track. Both recovered, and while Gammoudi fell out of the race two laps later, Virén caught up to the front and passed Bedford to take the lead at about the 6000 m mark.
With Virén leading for the rest of the race, the lead pack reduced to five competitors with 600 m remaining when he made his charge. He ran the final lap in 56.4 seconds; he won the gold medal, beating runner-up Puttemans by 7 m and setting a world record time of 27:38.35. Virén would go on to win the 5000 metres event, where he would set an Olympic record there; he also went on to win both the 10,000 metres and 5000 metres races at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.
The Guardian listed Virén's world record performance as the greatest sport comeback of all time.

Heats

The top four runners in each of the three heats and the next three fastest, advanced to the final round.
Heat one
RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
1Emiel Puttemans27:53.28OR
2Dave Bedford27:53.64
3Javier Álvarez28:08.58
4Abdel Kader Zaddem28:14.70
5Josef Jánský28:23.15
6Anatoly Badrankov28:35.84
7Noël Tijou28:36.08
8Werner Dössegger28:36.4
9Tadesse Wolde-Medhin28:45.4
10Akio Usami29:24.8
11Jeff Galloway29:35.0
12Naftali Temu30:19.6
13Esaie Fongang31:32.6
14P. C. Suppiah31:59.2
15Crispin Quispe32:31.8
16Giuseppe Cindolo33:03.4
–Günter MielkeDNF
–Usaia SotutuDNF

Heat two
RankNameNationalityTime
1Mohammed Gammoudi27:54.69
2Mariano Haro27:55.89
3Frank Shorter27:58.23
4Lasse Virén28:04.41
5Paul Mose28:18.74
6Rashid Sharafetdinov28:24.64
7Wohib Masresha28:28.2
8Pedro Miranda28:35.8
9Karel Lismont28:41.8
10Neil Cusack28:45.8
11Dave Holt28:46.8
12Keisuke Sawaki29:29.0
13Rafael Pérez29:36.6
14Julio Quevedo30:08.4
15Abdel Hamid Khamis30:19.2
16Lucien Rosa30:20.2
–Richard MabuzaDNF
–Abdi GuletDNS
–Per HalleDNS

Heat three
RankNameNationalityTime
1Miruts Yifter28:18.11
2Willy Polleunis28:19.71
3Pavlo Andreiev28:20.97
4Dane Korica28:22.24
5Juan Martínez28:23.14
6Lachie Stewart28:31.33
7Arne Risa28:31.74
8Jon Anderson28:34.2
9Carlos Lopes28:53.6
10Albrecht Moser29:05.8
11Richard Juma29:13.0
12Domingo Tibaduiza29:24.0
13Shaq Musa Medani29:32.8
14Manfred Letzerich29:37.8
15Hikmet Şen29:51.8
16Anilus JosephDNF
17Gavin ThorleyDNF
18Juha VäätäinenDNS
19Edmundo WarnkeDNS

Final