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 0.02 seconds 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 (after the United States, which had streaks of 9 Games and 7 Games, and Great Britain, which had medaled consecutively in 1920, 1924, and 1928). 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 (after 1928), 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 (1970 and 1974 Commonwealth Games champion, with a share of the world record at 9.9 seconds), particularly with American Steve Williams (who had run 9.9 seconds four times) 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.Official Report, vol. 3, p. 51.

Records

These are the standing world and Olympic records (in seconds) prior to the 1976 Summer Olympics.

World record 9.95 Jim Hines Mexico City (MEX) October 14, 1968 Olympic record 9.95 Jim Hines Mexico City (MEX) October 14, 1968

Results

Heats

The heats were held on July 23, 1976.

Heat 1

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Hasely Crawford 10.42 2 Alexander Thieme 10.64 3 Luciano Caravani 10.66 4 Lambert Micha 10.69 5 Gregory Simons 10.76 6 Bjarni Stefánsson 11.28 — Wavala Kali — Robert Martin

Heat 2

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Johnny Lam Jones 10.43 2 Amadou Meïté 10.53 3 Ainsley Armstrong 10.59 4 Mike Sharpe 10.70 5 Dominique Chauvelot 10.79 6 Mohamed Al-Sehly 11.10 7 Werner Bastians 11.17 8 Armando Padilla 11.52

Heat 3

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Petar Petrov 10.46 2 Zenon Licznerski 10.60 3 Rui da Silva 10.61 4 Christer Garpenborg 10.64 5 Jean-Claude Amoureux 10.75 6 Abdul Kareem Al-Awad 11.27 7 Ayoub Bodaghi 11.39

Heat 4

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Don Quarrie 10.38 2 Guy Abrahams 10.40 3 Marvin Nash 10.59 4 Mike Sands 10.65 5 Dennis Trott 10.67 6 Peter Fitzgerald 10.87 7 Ronald Russell 11.22

Heat 5

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Harvey Glance 10.37 2 Marian Woronin 10.56 3 Aleksandr Aksinin 10.60 4 Colin Bradford 10.64 5 Pedro Ferrer 10.76 6 Vasilios Papageorgopoulos 10.82 7 Leonard Jervis 10.87

Heat 6

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Klaus-Dieter Kurrat 10.37 2 Valeriy Borzov 10.53 3 Dieter Steinmann 10.68 4 Francisco Gómez 10.68 5 Barka Sy 10.81 6 Masahide Jinno 10.94 7 Colin Thurton 11.03 8 Siegfried Regales 11.11

Heat 7

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Steve Riddick 10.43 2 Andrzej Świerczyński 10.62 3 Adama Fall 10.72 4 Suchart Chairsuvaparb 10.75 5 Roland Bombardella 10.76 6 Clive Sands 10.82 7 Philippe Étienne 11.05

Heat 8

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Gilles Échevin 10.53 2 Klaus Bieler 10.58 3 Anat Ratanapol 10.71 4 Hermes Ramírez 10.72 5 Momar N'Dao 10.74 6 Ramli Ahmad 10.98 — René Mberinguerer

Heat 9

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Sammy Monsels 10.58 2 Silvio Leonard 10.62 3 Juris Silovs 10.70 4 Chris Brathwaite 10.71 5 Endre Lépold 10.82 6 Pearson Jordan 10.95 7 Tony Moore 11.16

Quarterfinals

The quarterfinals were held on July 23, 1976.

Quarterfinal 1

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Don Quarrie 10.33 2 Steve Riddick 10.36 3 Marvin Nash 10.48 4 Aleksandr Aksinin 10.55 5 Dennis Trott 10.64 6 Anat Ratanapol 10.65 7 Luciano Caravani 10.81 8 Gilles Échevin| 12.00

Quarterfinal 2

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Guy Abrahams 10.35 2 Johnny Lam Jones 10.46 3 Alexander Thieme 10.50 4 Marian Woronin 10.53 5 Silvio Leonard 10.59 6 Sammy Monsels 10.61 7 Colin Bradford 10.62 8 Christer Garpenborg 10.63

Quarterfinal 3

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Hasely Crawford 10.29 2 Valeriy Borzov 10.39 3 Amadou Meïté 10.45 4 Rui da Silva 10.57 5 Andrzej Świerczyński 10.59 6 Adama Fall 10.60 7 Klaus Bieler 10.80 — Mike Sands

Quarterfinal 4

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Harvey Glance 10.23 2 Klaus-Dieter Kurrat 10.29 3 Petar Petrov 10.30 4 Ainsley Armstrong 10.46 5 Francisco Gómez 10.49 6 Zenon Licznerski 10.52 7 Dieter Steinmann 10.67 — Juris Silovs

Semifinals

The semifinals were held on July 24, 1976.

Semifinal 1

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Harvey Glance 10.24 2 Valeriy Borzov 10.30 3 Klaus-Dieter Kurrat 10.30 4 Guy Abrahams 10.37 5 Marvin Nash 10.52 6 Ainsley Armstrong 10.52 7 Rui da Silva 10.54 8 Marian Woronin 10.69

Semifinal 2

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Hasely Crawford 10.22 2 Don Quarrie 10.26 3 Johnny Lam Jones 10.30 4 Petar Petrov 10.30 5 Steve Riddick 10.33 6 Amadou Meïté 10.46 7 Aleksandr Aksinin 10.50 8 Alexander Thieme 10.50

Final

The final was held on July 24, 1976.

Rank Lane Athlete Nation Time 1 Hasely Crawford 10.06 4 Don Quarrie 10.08 3 Valeriy Borzov 10.14 45 Harvey Glance 10.19 58 Guy Abrahams 10.25 66 Johnny Lam Jones 10.27 77 Klaus-Dieter Kurrat 10.31 82 Petar Petrov 10.35

See also 1972 Men's Olympic 100 metres (Munich) 1978 Men's European Championships 100 metres (Prague) 1980 Men's Olympic 100 metres (Moscow)

References