Athletics at the 1912 Summer Olympics – Men's 1500 metres

Men's 1500 metres at the Games of the V Olympiad
The finish with Arnold Jackson setting a new Olympic record.
Venue	Stockholm Olympic Stadium
Dates	July 9 (semifinals) July 10 (final)
Competitors	45 from 14 nations
Medalists
Arnold Jackson  Great Britain Abel Kiviat  United States Norman Taber  United States

Athletics at the 1912 Summer Olympics
Track events
100 m	men
200 m	men
400 m	men
800 m	men
1500 m	men
5000 m	men
10,000 m	men
110 m hurdles	men
4×100 m relay	men
4×400 m relay	men
3000 m team race	men
10 km walk	men
Road events
Marathon	men
Field events
Long jump	men
Triple jump	men
High jump	men
Pole vault	men
Standing long jump	men
Standing high jump	men
Shot put	men
Discus throw	men
Hammer throw	men
Javelin throw	men
2-hand shot put	men
2-hand discus	men
2-hand javelin	men
Combined events
Pentathlon	men
Decathlon	men
Cross-country events
Individual	men
Team	men

The men's 1500 metres was a track and field athletics event held as part of the athletics at the 1912 Summer Olympics programme. It was the fifth appearance of the event, which is one of 12 athletics events to have been held at every Summer Olympics. The competition was held on Tuesday, July 9, 1912 and on Wednesday, July 10, 1912.^[1]

Forty-five runners from 14 nations competed, including the Olympic champion from 1908, Mel Sheppard.

Arnold Jackson won the final by 0.1 second, ahead of an American trio, who were strong favourites, in what was acclaimed at the time as "the greatest race ever run". Aged 21, he remains the youngest ever winner of this event. This was the last Olympics where "private entries" were allowed (i.e. not part of a country's officially selected team), and Jackson was one such.

Records

These were the standing world and Olympic records (in minutes) prior to the 1912 Summer Olympics.

World Record	3:55.8	Abel Kiviat	Cambridge, MA (USA)	June 8, 1912
Olympic Record	4:03.4(**)	Norman Hallows	London (GBR)	July 13, 1908
	4:03.4(**)	Mel Sheppard	London (GBR)	July 14, 1908

(**) This track was 536.45 metres=​¹⁄₃ mile in circumference.

Abel Kiviat finished his semifinal only 1 second off the Olympic record time of 4:03.4; he and all six other finalists whose times are known broke that mark in the final. Kiviat took second behind Arnold Jackson, who set the new record at 3:56.8.

Results

Semifinals

All semi-finals were held on Tuesday, July 9, 1912.

Semifinal 1

Place	Athlete	Time	Qual.
1	Mel Sheppard (USA)	4:27.6	QF
2	Louis Madeira (USA)	4:27.9	QF
3	Albert Hare (GBR)	4:39.4

Semifinal 2

Place	Athlete	Time	Qual.
1	Norman Taber (USA)	4:25.5	QF
2	Philip Baker (GBR)	4:26.0	QF
3	Georg Amberger (GER)	4:27.0
4-5	Teofil Savniky (HUN)
	Rūdolfs Vītols (RUS)
—	Dmitri Nazarov (RUS)	Did not finish

Semifinal 3

Place	Athlete	Time	Qual.
1	Abel Kiviat (USA)	4:04.4	QF
2	Henri Arnaud (FRA)	4:05.4	QF
3	Norman Patterson (USA)	4:05.5
4	John Tait (CAN)
5	Ferenc Forgács (HUN)
6-7	François Delloye (BEL)
	Jacob Pedersen (NOR)
—	Edward Owen (GBR)	Did not finish

Semifinal 4

Place	Athlete	Time	Qual.
1	Arnold Jackson (GBR)	4:10.8	QF
2	John Paul Jones (USA)	4:12.4	QF
3	John Victor (RSA)	4:12.7
4	Lewis Anderson (USA)
5	Oscar Larsen (NOR)
6	Arnolds Indriksons (RUS)
7	Alfrēds Ruks (RUS)

Semifinal 5

Place	Athlete	Time	Qual.
1	John Zander (SWE)	4:05.5	QF
2	Evert Björn (SWE)	4:07.2	QF
3	Herbert Putnam (USA)	4:07.6
4	Richard Yorke (GBR)
5	Georg Mickler (GER)
6	Aleksandr Elizarov (RUS)
7	Nikolay Kharkov (RUS)
—	Charles Ruffell (GBR)	Did not finish

Semifinal 6

Place	Athlete	Time	Qual.
1	Erwin von Sigel (GER)	4:09.3	QF
2	Oscar Hedlund (USA)	4:10.8	QF
3	William Moore (GBR)	4:11.2
4	Nils Frykberg (SWE)	4:11.2
5-6	Frederick Hulford (GBR)
	Andrejs Krūkliņš (RUS)
—	Guido Calvi (ITA)	Did not finish

Semifinal 7

Place	Athlete	Time	Qual.
1	Ernst Wide (SWE)	4:06.0	QF
2	Walter McClure (USA)	4:07.3	QF
3	Joe Cottrill (GBR)
4	Matti Harju (FIN)
5	Yevgeny Petrov (RUS)
—	Vahram Papazian (TUR)	Did not finish

Final

The start of the final.

The final was held on Wednesday, July 10, 1912.

Place	Athlete	Time
1	Arnold Jackson (GBR)	3:56.8 OR
2	Abel Kiviat (USA)	3:56.9
3	Norman Taber (USA)	3:56.9
4	John Paul Jones (USA)	3:57.2
5	Ernst Wide (SWE)	3:57.6
6	Philip Baker (GBR)	4:01.0
7	John Zander (SWE)	4:02.0
8	Walter McClure (USA)
9-14	Henri Arnaud (FRA)
	Evert Björn (SWE)
	Oscar Hedlund (USA)
	Louis Madeira (USA)
	Mel Sheppard (USA)
	Erwin von Sigel (GER)

References

Sources

• Bergvall, Erik (ed.) (1913). Adams-Ray, Edward (trans.)., ed. The Official Report of the Olympic Games of Stockholm 1912. Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand.CS1 maint: Extra text: authors list (link)
• Wudarski, Pawel (1999). "Wyniki Igrzysk Olimpijskich" (in Polish). Retrieved 27 August 2006.