The men's 100 metres sprint event at the 1984 Olympic Games took place between August 3 and August 4. Eighty-two athletes from 59 countries participated. Each nation was limited to 3 athletes per rules in force since the 1930 Olympic Congress. The event was won by Carl Lewis of the United States, that nation's first title after two Games of missing the podium (4th in 1976, boycotted in 1980). Canada's Ben Johnson took bronze to break up the Americans' bid to sweep the podium (which they had done in 1904 and 1912); it was Canada's first medal in the event since 1964.

Background

This was the twentieth time the event was held, having appeared at every Olympics since the first in 1896. Defending gold medal winner Allan Wells of Great Britain was the only finalist from the Moscow Games to return. The American team was strong, led by 1983 World Championship winner Carl Lewis, who was attempting to match Jesse Owens's 1936 quadruple (100, 200, 4x100, and long jump). Sam Graddy and Ron Brown were the other members of the United States squad, edging out world record holder and World Championships runner-up Calvin Smith. Challengers to the hosts included World Championship finalists Wells, Paul Narracott of Australia, Christian Haas of West Germany, and Desai Williams of Canada, as well as up-and-coming Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson.

Thirteen nations appeared in the event for the first time: Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh, the British Virgin Islands, China (in its People's Republic form), Costa Rica, Equatorial Guinea, The Gambia, Mauritius, Oman, Qatar, the Solomon Islands, Swaziland, and the United Arab Emirates. The United States made its 19th appearance in the event, most of any country, having missed only the boycotted 1980 Games.

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, the system was used in both the preliminaries and quarterfinals.

The first round consisted of 11 heats, each with 7 or 8 athletes. The top three runners in each heat advanced, along with the next seven fastest runners overall. This made 40 quarterfinalists, who were divided into 5 heats of 8 runners. The top three runners in each quarterfinal advanced, with one "fastest loser" place. 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. 2, pp. 270–71.

Records

These are the standing world and Olympic records (in seconds) prior to the 1980 Summer Olympics.

World record 9.93 Calvin Smith Colorado Springs (United States) July 3, 1983 Olympic record 9.95 Jim Hines Mexico City (Mexico) October 14, 1968

Results

Heats

The top three runners in each of the eleven heats and the next seven fastest, advanced to the quarterfinal round.

Heat 1 Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Carl Lewis 10.32 2 Tony Sharpe 10.38 3 Mike McFarlane 10.47 4 Hasely Crawford 10.48 5 Peter Van Miltenburg 10.55 6 Vicente Daniel 10.81 7 Henry Ngolwe 10.94 8 Paul Réneau 10.96

Heat 2 Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Allan Wells 10.32 2 Mohamed Purnomo 10.40 3 José Javier Arqués 10.42 4 Marc Gasparoni 10.47 5 Emilio Samayoa 10.84 6 Barnabé Messomo 10.98 7 Charles Mbazira 11.03 8 Mohamed Abdullah 11.11

Heat 3 Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Desai Williams 10.35 2 Chidi Imoh 10.39 3 Charles-Louis Seck 10.45 4 Christian Nenepath 10.66 Henri Ndinga 10.66 6 Abdullah Sulaiman Al-Akbary 10.86 7 Inoke Bainimoli 11.15 8 Daniel André 11.19

Heat 4 Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Sumet Promna 10.52 2 Paul Narracott 10.55 3 Neville Hodge 10.58 4 Audrick Lightbourne 10.64 5 Gus Young 10.64 6 Bill Trott 10.76 7 Kgosiemang Khumoyarano 11.49

Heat 5 Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Sam Graddy 10.29 2 Donovan Reid 10.41 3 Jürgen Evers 10.54 4 Hiroki Fuwa 10.56 5 Philip Attipoe 10.60 6 Jean-Yves Mallat 10.83 7 Markus Büchel 10.98 8 Clifford Mamba 11.24

Heat 6 Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Ray Stewart 10.24 2 Antoine Richard 10.35 3 Antonio Ullo 10.36 4 Paulo Roberto Correia 10.45 5 Anthony Jones 10.69 6 Oliver Daniels 10.76 7 Muhammad Mansha 10.87

Heat 7 Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Ben Johnson 10.35 2 Yu Zhuanghui 10.53 3 Bruno Marie-Rose 10.59 4 Earl Haley 10.74 5 Julien Thode 10.92 6 Ronald Russell 11.02 7 Denis Rose 11.04

Heat 8 Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Ronald Desruelles 10.46 2 Stefano Tilli 10.48 3 Fred Martin 10.64 4 Luís Barroso 10.76 5 Gustavo Envela 10.79 6 Oumar Fye 10.87 7 Anthony Henry 10.99 8 Saidur Rahman Dawn 11.25

Heat 9 Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Ron Brown 10.58 2 Luis Morales 10.60 3 Nelson dos Santos 10.70 4 Ralf Lübke 10.70 5 Collins Mensah 10.92 6 Ivan Benjamin 11.13 7 Johnson Kere 11.57

Heat 10 Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Norman Edwards 10.57 2 Dudley Parker 10.65 3 Kouadio Otokpa 10.72 4 Pierfrancesco Pavoni 10.72 5 Faraj Saad Marzouk 10.78 6 Odiya Silweya 11.22 7 Glen Abrahams 11.31

Heat 11 Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Christian Haas 10.41 2 Alfonso Pitters 10.50 3 Katsuhiko Nakaya 10.55 4 Bakary Jarjue 10.68 5 Sim Deok-seop 10.72 6 Guy Hill 11.11 7 Aldo Salandra 11.31

Quarterfinals

The top three runners in each of the five heats and the next fastest one, advanced to the semifinal round.

Quarterfinal 1 Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Ben Johnson 10.41 2 Donovan Reid 10.47 3 Christian Haas 10.51 4 Hasely Crawford 10.56 5 Antonio Ullo 10.57 6 Bruno Marie-Rose 10.60 7 Paul Narracott 10.60 8 Alfonso Pitters 10.63

Quarterfinal 2 Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Sam Graddy 10.15 2 Tony Sharpe 10.33 3 Norman Edwards 10.44 4 Nelson dos Santos 10.53 5 Charles-Louis Seck 10.54 6 Yu Zhuanghui 10.59 7 Neville Hodge 10.69 — Ronald Desruelles

Quarterfinal 3 Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Stefano Tilli 10.39 2 Ron Brown 10.40 3 Marc Gasparoni 10.56 4 Sumet Promna 10.61 5 Katsuhiko Nakaya 10.69 6 Hiroki Fuwa 10.75 7 Philip Attipoe 10.78 8 Kouadio Otokpa 10.80

Quarterfinal 4 Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Ray Stewart 10.30 2 Allan Wells 10.33 3 Mohamed Purnomo 10.43 4 José Javier Arqués 10.52 Peter Van Miltenburg 10.52 6 Antoine Richard 10.53 7 Paulo Roberto Correia 10.54 8 Audrick Lightbourne 10.59

Quarterfinal 5 Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Carl Lewis 10.04 2 Desai Williams 10.27 3 Luis Morales 10.35 4 Mike McFarlane 10.36 5 Chidi Imoh 10.42 6 Dudley Parker 10.58 7 Fred Martin 10.61 8 Jürgen Evers 10.69

Semifinals

The top four runners in each of the two heats advanced to the final round.

Semifinal 1 The wind was +0.7 m/s.

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Ray Stewart 10.26 2 Sam Graddy 10.27 3 Donovan Reid 10.32 4 Ron Brown 10.34 5 Desai Williams 10.34 6 Christian Haas 10.41 7 Marc Gasparoni 10.49 8 Mohamed Purnomo 10.51

Semifinal 2 The wind was -1.5 m/s.

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Carl Lewis 10.14 2 Ben Johnson 10.42 3 Mike McFarlane 10.45 4 Tony Sharpe 10.52 5 Luis Morales 10.54 6 Stefano Tilli 10.55 7 Norman Edwards 10.63 8 Allan Wells 10.71

Final Wind = + 0.2 m/s

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes Carl Lewis 9.99 Sam Graddy 10.19 Ben Johnson 10.22 4 Ron Brown 10.26 5 Mike McFarlane 10.27 6 Ray Stewart 10.29 7 Donovan Reid 10.33 8 Tony Sharpe 10.35

See also Athletics at the Friendship Games – Men's 100 metres

References