Athletics at the 1976 Summer Olympics – Men's 100 metres


The men's 100 metres sprint event at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, was held at Olympic Stadium on July 23 and 24. Sixty-three athletes from 40 nations competed. Each nation was limited to 3 athletes per rules in force since the 1930 Olympic Congress. The event was won by Hasely Crawford of Trinidad and Tobago, earning the nation's first gold medal and making Crawford a national hero. Don Quarrie's silver medal made Jamaica only the third country to reach the men's 100 metres podium three consecutive times. Valeriy Borzov of the Soviet Union was unable to defend his title, but by taking bronze became the third man to medal twice in the event. For only the second time, the United States did not have a medalist in the event.
In the preliminary rounds, all the top athletes were running times in the 10.30s to 10.40s, while by the semi-finals some times dropped to the 10.20s. They took the top 4 from each semi, so Steve Riddick was left out of the final even though he had run faster than Guy Abrahams in the earlier semi. With the #1 time from the semis, Hasely Crawford was still placed in lane 1, somewhat hidden from the other top contenders in the center of the track, including Harvey Glance, 200 metre specialist Don Quarrie and the defending champion Valeriy Borzov. From the gun, Borzov was out fast in lane 3 gaining a half a metre on Quarrie next to him in 4, with Glance another half metre behind Quarrie. As Quarrie slowly gained on Borzov, Crawford was also speeding down lane 1. Quarrie went past Borzov, but Crawford was already ahead for a narrow victory, the leaning Borzov holding off Glance.

Background

This was the eighteenth time the event was held, having appeared at every Olympics since the first in 1896. Two finalists from 1972 returned: gold medal winner Valeriy Borzov of the Soviet Union and Hasely Crawford of Trinidad and Tobago, who had not finished the Munich final. The favorite was Jamaican Don Quarrie, particularly with American Steve Williams having been injured at the U.S. Olympic trials. Borzov was "not the dominant sprinter he had been in 1972." The top American in Montreal was Harvey Glance, who had run the 9.9 second world record time twice. Cuban Silvio Leonard had also matched that time once.
Three nations appeared in the event for the first time: Barbados, Belize, and the Netherlands Antilles. The United States was the only nation to have appeared at each of the first eighteen Olympic men's 100 metres events.

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, that system applied only in the preliminary heats.
The first round consisted of 9 heats, each with 6–8 athletes. The top three runners in each heat advanced, along with the next five fastest runners overall. This made 32 quarterfinalists, who were divided into 4 heats of 8 runners. The top four runners in each quarterfinal advanced, with no "fastest loser" places. 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 1976 Summer Olympics.
World Record9.95 Jim HinesMexico City October 14, 1968
Olympic Record9.95 Jim HinesMexico City October 14, 1968

Results

Heats

The heats were held on July 23, 1976.

Heat 1

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Hasely Crawford10.42
2Alexander Thieme10.64
3Luciano Caravani10.66
4Lambert Micha10.69
5Gregory Simons10.76
6Bjarni Stefánsson11.28

Heat 2

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Johnny Lam Jones10.43
2Amadou Meïté10.53
3Ainsley Armstrong10.59
4Mike Sharpe10.70
5Dominique Chauvelot10.79
6Mohamed Al-Sehly11.10
7Werner Bastians11.17
8Armando Padilla11.52

Heat 3

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Petar Petrov10.46
2Zenon Licznerski10.60
3Rui da Silva10.61
4Christer Garpenborg10.64
5Jean-Claude Amoureux10.75
6Abdul Kareem Al-Awad11.27
7Ayoub Bodaghi11.39

Heat 4

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Don Quarrie10.38
2Guy Abrahams10.40
3Marvin Nash10.59
4Mike Sands10.65
5Dennis Trott10.67
6Peter Fitzgerald10.87
7Ronald Russell11.22

Heat 5

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Harvey Glance10.37
2Marian Woronin10.56
3Aleksandr Aksinin10.60
4Colin Bradford10.64
5Pedro Ferrer10.76
6Vasilios Papageorgopoulos10.82
7Leonard Jervis10.87

Heat 6

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Klaus-Dieter Kurrat10.37
2Valeriy Borzov10.53
3Dieter Steinmann10.68
4Francisco Gómez10.68
5Barka Sy10.81
6Masahide Jinno10.94
7Colin Thurton11.03
8Siegfried Regales11.11

Heat 7

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Steve Riddick10.43
2Andrzej Świerczyński10.62
3Adama Fall10.72
4Suchart Chairsuvaparb10.75
5Roland Bombardella10.76
6Clive Sands10.82
7Philippe Étienne11.05

Heat 8

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Gilles Échevin10.53
2Klaus Bieler10.58
3Anat Ratanapol10.71
4Hermes Ramírez10.72
5Momar N'Dao10.74
6Ramli Ahmad10.98

Heat 9

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Sammy Monsels10.58
2Silvio Leonard10.62
3Juris Silovs10.70
4Chris Brathwaite10.71
5Endre Lépold10.82
6Pearson Jordan10.95
7Tony Moore11.16

Quarterfinals

The quarterfinals were held on July 23, 1976.

Quarterfinal 1

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Don Quarrie10.33
2Steve Riddick10.36
3Marvin Nash10.48
4Aleksandr Aksinin10.55
5Dennis Trott10.64
6Anat Ratanapol10.65
7Luciano Caravani10.81
812.00

Quarterfinal 2

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Guy Abrahams10.35
2Johnny Lam Jones10.46
3Alexander Thieme10.50
4Marian Woronin10.53
5Silvio Leonard10.59
6Sammy Monsels10.61
7Colin Bradford10.62
8Christer Garpenborg10.63

Quarterfinal 3

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Hasely Crawford10.29
2Valeriy Borzov10.39
3Amadou Meïté10.45
4Rui da Silva10.57
5Andrzej Świerczyński10.59
6Adama Fall10.60
7Klaus Bieler10.80
—Mike Sands

Quarterfinal 4

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Harvey Glance10.23
2Klaus-Dieter Kurrat10.29
3Petar Petrov10.30
4Ainsley Armstrong10.46
5Francisco Gómez10.49
6Zenon Licznerski10.52
7Dieter Steinmann10.67
—Juris Silovs

Semifinals

The semifinals were held on July 24, 1976.

Semifinal 1

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Harvey Glance10.24
2Valeriy Borzov10.30
3Klaus-Dieter Kurrat10.30
4Guy Abrahams10.37
5Marvin Nash10.52
6Ainsley Armstrong10.52
7Rui da Silva10.54
8Marian Woronin10.69

Semifinal 2

RankAthleteNationTimeNotes
1Hasely Crawford10.22
2Don Quarrie10.26
3Johnny Lam Jones10.30
4Petar Petrov10.30
5Steve Riddick10.33
6Amadou Meïté10.46
7Aleksandr Aksinin10.50
8Alexander Thieme10.50

Final

The final was held on July 24, 1976.
RankAthleteNationTime
Hasely Crawford10.06
Don Quarrie10.08
Valeriy Borzov10.14
4Harvey Glance10.19
5Guy Abrahams10.25
6Johnny Lam Jones10.27
7Klaus-Dieter Kurrat10.31
8Petar Petrov10.35