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Athletics at the 1992 Summer Olympics – Women's 800 metres

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Women's 800 metres
at the Games of the XXV Olympiad
VenueEstadi Olímpic de Montjuïc
Dates31 July 1992 (heats)
1 August 1992 (semi-finals)
3 August 1992 (final)
Competitors36 from 25 nations
Winning time1:55.54
Medalists
1st place, gold medalist(s) Ellen van Langen
 Netherlands
2nd place, silver medalist(s) Liliya Nurutdinova
 Unified Team
3rd place, bronze medalist(s) Ana Fidelia Quirot
 Cuba
← 1988
1996 →
Official Video Highlights
@ 9:00

These are the official results of the women's 800 metres event at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. There were a total of 36 participating athletes, with five qualifying heats.[1]

Race description

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Favorites for the title were 1991 Tokyo World Championships gold medallist Liliya Nurutdinova for the Unified Team, Ana Quirot (Cuba), and Africa's hopeful, 19-year old Maria Mutola (Mozambique). Other potential rivals like the former East German athletes Sigrun Wodars (as Sigrun Grau, after a divorce) and Christine Wachtel, the one-two finish at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, had been eliminated in the preliminaries. The fastest semi-final was won by Nurutdinova. Dutch runner Ellen van Langen had set the fastest time of the season prior to the Games.[2]

In the final, fearing Van Langen's final sprint, her main competitor, a confident Nurutdinova, set a rapid pace, running the first lap in a very fast time of 55.73, with Van Langen only in 6th position.[2][3][4] Pressured by Mutola, Quirot and Ella Kovacs (Romania), Nurutdinova led the final from the start. Entering the final stretch she had a slight lead, but Van Langen, only fifth at 600 meters, moved through on the inside. With Nurutdinova moving away from the curb to block her challengers, Van Langen in the last 50m passed – still on the inside – to win a surprise victory in a time of 1:55.54, beating Nurutdinova (silver) and Quirot (bronze).[2][3][4]

Van Langen later explained the secret of her success. “I think what I could do well is I could die very well in a race and still continue,” she said. “That is very hard, because it hurts running the 800 meters. You have to overcome some boundaries in yourself to continue when it hurts like hell. I was good at it. If the Olympic race would have been run by each athlete individual and the fastest time was the winner I would not have won,” she added. “I was also good in tactics, looking around me and taking the right decisions.”[5]

Medalists

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Gold Ellen van Langen
 Netherlands
Silver Liliya Nurutdinova
 Unified Team
Bronze Ana Fidelia Quirot
 Cuba

Records

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These were the standing world and Olympic records (in minutes) prior to the 1992 Summer Olympics.

World Record 1:53.28 Czechoslovakia Jarmila Kratochvílová Munich (FRG) July 26, 1983
Olympic Record 1:53.43 Soviet Union Nadiya Olizarenko Moscow (URS) July 27, 1980

Final

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Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes
1st place, gold medalist(s) Ellen van Langen  Netherlands 1:55.54
2nd place, silver medalist(s) Liliya Nurutdinova  Unified Team 1:55.99
3rd place, bronze medalist(s) Ana Fidelia Quirot  Cuba 1:56.80
4 Inna Yevseyeva  Unified Team 1:57.20
5 Maria de Lurdes Mutola  Mozambique 1:57.49
6 Ella Kovacs  Romania 1:57.95
7 Joetta Clark  United States 1:58.06
8 Lyubov Gurina  Unified Team 1:58.13

Semi finals

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Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes
1 Liliya Nurutdinova  Unified Team 1:58.04
2 Maria de Lurdes Mutola  Mozambique 1:58.16
3 Inna Yevseyeva  Unified Team 1:58.20
4 Joetta Clark  United States 1:58.22
5 Letitia Vriesde  Suriname 1:58.28
6 Charmaine Crooks  Canada 1:58.55
7 Lorraine Baker  Great Britain 2:02.17
8 Sabine Zwiener  Germany 2:02.64


Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes
1 Lyubov Gurina  Unified Team 2:00.64
2 Ellen van Langen  Netherlands 2:00.68
3 Ana Fidelia Quirot  Cuba 2:00.86
4 Ella Kovacs  Romania 2:00.89
5 Sigrun Grau  Germany 2:00.91
6 Carla Sacramento  Portugal 2:02.85
7 Diane Edwards  Great Britain 2:04.32
8 Julie Jenkins  United States 2:06.53

Heats

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Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes
1 Sigrun Grau  Germany 2:00.31
2 Liliya Nurutdinova  Unified Team 2:00.37
3 Diane Edwards  Great Britain 2:00.39
4 Shiny Wilson  India 2:01.90
5 Stella Jongmans  Netherlands 2:02.26
6 Brigitte Nganaye  Central African Republic 2:15.70
R. Baguepeng Gangue  Chad DSQ


Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes
1 Joetta Clark  United States 1:59.62
2 Ellen van Langen  Netherlands 1:59.86
3 Carla Sacramento  Portugal 2:00.57
4 Christine Wachtel  Germany 2:01.39
5 Paula Fryer  Great Britain 2:02.72
6 Sukanya Sang-Ngeun  Thailand 2:09.94
7 Andrea Garae  Vanuatu 2:28.61


Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes
1 Ella Kovacs  Romania 1:59.88
2 Letitia Vriesde  Suriname 1:59.93
3 Julie Jenkins  United States 1:59.96
4 Sabine Zwiener  Germany 2:00.87
5 Fabia Trabaldo  Italy 2:01.44
6 Sriyani Dhammika Menike  Sri Lanka 2:03.85
(NR)
7 Prisca Singamo  Malawi 2:20.84


Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes
1 Inna Yevseyeva  Unified Team 1:58.58
2 Ana Fidelia Quirot  Cuba 1:59.06
3 Charmaine Crooks  Canada 1:59.52
4 Lorraine Baker  Great Britain 2:00.50
5 Leontia Sălăgeanu  Romania 2:01.44
6 Zewdie Hailemariam  Ethiopia 2:03.85
Carol Galea  Malta DSQ


Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes
1 Lyubov Gurina  Unified Team 2:00.27
2 Maria de Lurdes Mutola  Mozambique 2:00.83
3 Meredith Rainey  United States 2:01.33
4 Viviane Dorsile  France 2:01.54
5 Amaia Andrés  Spain 2:02.67
6 Gladys Wamuyu  Kenya 2:03.01
7 Edith Nakiyingi  Uganda 2:03.55
8 Mantokoane Pitso  Lesotho 2:29.77

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Athletics at the 1992 Barcelona Games: Women's 800 metres". sports-reference.com. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 21 October 2017.
  2. ^ a b c "Ellen van Langen". athletics-heroes.net. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  3. ^ a b "Women's 800m Final Barcelona Olympics 1992". Archived from the original on 24 July 2021. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  4. ^ a b "Portret Ellen van Langen". sportkroniek.nl (in Dutch). 25 June 2008. Archived from the original on 30 May 2012. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  5. ^ "Van Langen able to "die" best for Olympic gold". Xinhua. 10 July 2002. Retrieved 7 March 2016.
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