Athletics at the 1960 Summer Olympics – Men's 800 metres

Men's 800 metres at the Games of the XVII Olympiad
Venue	Olympic Stadium
Dates	August 31 (heats and quarterfinals) September 2 (semifinals and final)
Medalists
Peter Snell  New Zealand Roger Moens  Belgium George Kerr  British West Indies

Athletics at the 1960 Summer Olympics
Track events
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
400 m	men
800 m	men	women
1500 m	men
5000 m	men
10,000 m	men
80 m hurdles		women
110 m hurdles	men
400 m hurdles	men
3000 m steeplechase	men
4×100 m relay	men	women
4×400 m relay	men
Road events
Marathon	men
20 km walk	men
50 km walk	men
Field events
Long jump	men	women
Triple jump	men
High jump	men	women
Pole vault	men
Shot put	men	women
Discus throw	men	women
Javelin throw	men	women
Hammer throw	men
Combined events
Decathlon	men

The men's 800 metres middle distance event at the 1960 Olympic Games took place between August 31 and September 2.^[1]

Only six men were seeded into the final. From the gun Christian Wägli led the pack of five runners off the turn, with only Manfred Matuschewski already beaten. Falling in the back of the pack was Peter Snell from lane 6, the far outside. Wägli held the lead down the final backstretch and through the final turn, with Roger Moens moving in behind him ready to pounce out of a still tight pack. Snell was still at the back, boxed in with George Kerr to his outside. Coming off the turn, Moens pounced, passing Wägli in lane 2 with clear sailing to victory. But Moens' move broke up the pack, it was a free for all sprint to the finish. With Wägli struggling on the rail, Snell had a path down lane 1. On the outside Kerr passed Paul Schmidt and was sprinting in lane 3. A surprised Moens looked to his inside so see who the competitor was who was passing him. It was Snell with more power. Moens tried to accelerate again but Snell's strength was too much. Looking at Snell again he leaned for the line but too little too late to catch Snell.

Results

Heats

The fastest three runners in each of the nine heats advanced to the quarterfinal round.

Heat one

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Donal Smith	New Zealand	1:51.86
2	Valery Bulyshev	Soviet Union	1:51.83
3	Zbigniew Makomaski	Poland	1:52.70
4	Brian Hewson	Great Britain	1:54.73
5	Yair Pantilat	Israel	1:54.86
6	George Johnson	Liberia	1:56.04

Heat two

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Tom Farrell	Great Britain	1:49.05
2	Jerry Siebert	United States	1:49.08
3	Jos Lambrechts	Belgium	1:49.24
4	Pierre-Yvon Lenoir	France	1:49.41
5	Jaromír Šlégr	Czechoslovakia	1:50.23
6	Moussa Said	Ethiopia	1:50.49

Heat three

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Peter Snell	New Zealand	1:48.22
2	Christian Wägli	Switzerland	1:48.88
3	Ernie Cunliffe	United States	1:48.95
4	István Rózsavölgyi	Hungary	1:49.51

Heat four

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Tony Blue	Australia	1:50.82
2	Ergas Leps	Canada	1:50.93
3	Manfred Matuschewski	United Team of Germany	1:51.17
4	Vasily Savinkov	Soviet Union	1:51.49
5	Konstantinos Moragiemos	Greece	1:54.60
6	Ahmed Lazreg	Morocco	1:55.91

Heat five

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Abram Kryvosheiev	Soviet Union	1:53.49
2	Jörg Balke	United Team of Germany	1:53.72
3	John Wenk	Great Britain	1:54.27
4	Norbert Haupert	Luxembourg	1:54.83
5	Frederick Owusu	Ghana	1:55.41
6	Egon Oehri	Liechtenstein	2:00.49

Heat six

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Roger Moens	Belgium	1:50.73
2	Per Knuts	Sweden	1:51.36
3	Lajos Kovács	Hungary	1:51.45
4	Stefan Lewandowski	Poland	1:51.75
5	Svavar Markússon	Iceland	1:52.88
6	Abdeslem Dargouth	Tunisia	1:54.87

Heat seven

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	George Kerr	British West Indies	1:51.11
2	Terry Sullivan	Rhodesia	1:51.26
3	Péter Parsch	Hungary	1:51.34
4	Borut Ingolič	Yugoslavia	1:51.51
5	Pertti Ålander	Finland	1:52.20
6	Zbigniew Orywał	Poland	1:55.89

Heat eight

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Paul Schmidt	United Team of Germany	1:50.97
2	Rudolf Klaban	Austria	1:50.96
3	Ronnie Delany	Ireland	1:51.19
4	Joe Mullins	Canada	1:51.46
5	Gianfranco Baraldi	Italy	1:52.15
6	Julio Gómez	Spain	1:53.90
7	Somsakdi Tongaram	Thailand	1:57.24

Heat nine

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Tom Murphy	United States	1:52.30
2	Ralph Gomes	Guyana	1:53.06
3	Ekrem Koçak	Turkey	1:59.12
4	Sig Ohlemann	Canada	2:07.40

Quarterfinals

The fastest three runners in each of the four heats advanced to the semifinal round.

Heat one

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Tom Murphy	United States	1:48.12
2	Christian Wägli	Switzerland	1:48.15
3	Manfred Matuschewski	United Team of Germany	1:48.24
4	Donal Smith	New Zealand	1:48.52
5	Terry Sullivan	Rhodesia	1:50.01

Heat two

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Paul Schmidt	United Team of Germany	1:51.38
2	Abram Krivosheyev	Soviet Union	1:51.40
3	Jerry Siebert	United States	1:51.53
4	Zbigniew Makomaski	Poland	1:51.72
5	Ralph Gomes	Guyana	1:52.47
6	Lajos Kovács	Hungary	1:52.55
7	Per Knuts	Sweden	1:52.91

Heat three

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	George Kerr	British West Indies	1:49.58
2	Ernie Cunliffe	United States	1:49.83
3	Tony Blue	Australia	1:50.05
4	John Wenk	Great Britain	1:50.13
5	Valery Bulyshev	Soviet Union	1:50.74
6	Ronnie Delany	Ireland	151.42

Heat four

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Roger Moens	Belgium	1:48.69
2	Peter Snell	New Zealand	1:48.84
3	Jörg Balke	United Team of Germany	1:48.98
4	Rudolf Klaban	Austria	1:50.32
5	Tom Farrell	Great Britain	1:50.84
6	Ergas Leps	Canada	1:52.13
7	Ekrem Koçak	Turkey	1:52.66

Semifinals

The fastest three runners in each of the two heats advanced to the final round.

Heat one

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	George Kerr	British West Indies	1:47.26	OR
2	Christian Wägli	Switzerland	1:47.40
3	Manfred Matuschewski	United Team of Germany	1:47.54
4	Jörg Balke	United Team of Germany	1:47.63
5	Tony Blue	Australia	1:47.97
6	Tom Murphy	United States	1:48.29

Heat two

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Peter Snell	New Zealand	1:47.34
2	Roger Moens	Belgium	1:47.49
3	Paul Schmidt	United Team of Germany	1:47.95
4	Jerry Siebert	United States	1:48.20
5	Abram Krivosheyev	Soviet Union	1:48.25
6	Ernie Cunliffe	United States	1:50.92

Final

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
	Peter Snell	New Zealand	1:46.48	OR
	Roger Moens	Belgium	1:46.55
	George Kerr	British West Indies	1:47.25
4	Paul Schmidt	United Team of Germany	1:47.82
5	Christian Wägli	Switzerland	1:48.19
6	Manfred Matuschewski	United Team of Germany	1:52.21

Key: OR = Olympic record

References