The men's 800 metres at the 2023 World Athletics Championships was held at the National Athletics Centre in Budapest, Hungary from 22 to 26 August 2023.
Summary
Several renowned athletes failed to progress past the heats. Olympic and defending champion, Emmanuel Korir, Olympic silver medalist and 2019 bronze medalist Ferguson Rotich, 2019 bronze medalist Amel Tuka, 2016 Olympic bronze medalist Clayton Murphy and 2022 Commonwealth Games silver medalist Peter Bol all failed to qualify for the semifinals. Returning silver medalist Djamel Sedjati was lucky to be in the slow second semi. His second place automatic qualifier of 1:44.49 was the slowest time to make the final. Ben Pattison was the slowest qualifier on time with 1:44.23. Emmanuel Wanyonyi was the fastest qualifier with 1:43.83.
The final started with Pattison the first to the break line, but Wanyonyi pushed the back stretch to take the lead before the next turn, then used his position to keep the pace slow taking the bell at 52.68. In the 2022 Olympic final Arop hit the bell in 52.05 and relinquished the lead on the home stretch. This year he was dead last after 400m. Halfway through the penultimate turn, Arop moved out to get some running room. Shifting gears as he hit the backstretch, Arop ran past the field, taking the lead at the beginning of the final turn and he kept going opening up a 2 metre lead through the turn. Coming off the turn, the others lined up three abreast behind Wanyonyi to sprint for home, but Arop was way out front and pulling away. Wanyonyi made a late run, pulling back a metre from Arop's lead, but still finished 2 metres back. Two more metres back, Pattison hit the line barely ahead of Adrián Ben and Slimane Moula for bronze. Sedjati was later disqualified for a lane violation.
Records Before the competition records were as follows:
RecordAthlete & LocationDate World record1:40.91London, United Kingdom9 August 2012Championship record1:42.34Doha, Qatar1 October 2019World Leading1:43.2221 July 2023African Record1:40.91London, United Kingdom9 August 2012Asian Record1:42.79Fontvieille, Monaco29 July 2008European Record1:41.11Cologne, Germany24 August 1997North, Central American and Caribbean record1:42.34Doha, Qatar1 October 2019Oceanian record1:43.99Paris, France8 July 2023South American Record1:41.77Cologne, West Germany26 August 1984
Qualification standard The standard to qualify automatically for entry was 1:44.70.
Schedule The event schedule, in local time (UTC+2), was as follows:
Date Time Round22 August 19:20 Heats24 August 20:50 Semi-finals26 August 20:30 Final
Results
Heats The first 3 athletes in each heat (Q) and the next 3 fastest (q) qualify for the semi-finals.
Rank Heat Name Nationality Time Notes 1 1Emmanuel Wanyonyi 1:44.92Q 2 7Marco Arop 1:45.05Q 3 1Gabriel Tual 1:45.10Q 4 7Simone Barontini 1:45.21Q 5 6Abdelati El Guesse 1:45.24Q 6 7Yanis Meziane 1:45.30Q 7 1Catalin Tecuceanu 1:45.31Q 8 4Adrián Ben 1:45.24Q 9 2Mateusz Borkowski 1:45.40Q 10 6Andreas Kramer 1:45.42Q 11 2Max Burgin 1:45.43Q 12 2Joseph Deng 1:45.48Q 13 4Bryce Hoppel 1:45.56Q 14 1Tshepiso Masalela 1:45.60q 15 4Daniel Rowden 1:45.67Q 16 2Mark English 1:45.71q, 17 6Slimane Moula 1:45.76Q 17 4Filip Ostrowski 1:45.76q 19 6Francesco Pernici 1:45.89 20 7Joonas Rinne 1:45.93 21 2Brad Mathas 1:45.95 22 4Abdullahi Hassan 1:46.33 23 5Benjamin Robert 1:46.45Q 24 4Ferguson Cheruiyot Rotich 1:46.53 25 5Ben Pattison 1:46.57Q 26 4Marino Bloudek 1:46.63 27 5Mohamed Attaoui 1:46.65Q 28 6Peter Bol 1:46.75 29 5Emmanuel Kipkurui Korir 1:46.78 30 6James Preston 1:46.84 31 5Abdessalem Ayouni 1:46.85 32 6Handal Roban 1:46.86 33 5Clayton Murphy 1:47.06 34 7 1:47.18 35 2 1:47.41 36 3Ngeno Kipngetich 1:47.63Q 37 7Eduardo Ribeiro 1:47.75 38 5Abedin Mujezinović 1:47.76 39 7Oussama Nabil 1:47.79 40 3Djamel Sedjati 1:47.87Q 41 3Saúl Ordóñez 1:47.97Q 42 7Abdullah Al-Yaari 1:47.98 43 3Isaiah Harris 1:48.00 44 3John Fitzsimons 1:48.20 45 1Ryan Sánchez 1:48.24 46 6Alex Beddoes 1:48.31 47 5Riley McGown 1:48.38 48 3Ebrahim Alzofairi 1:48.41 49 2Tom Dradriga 1:48.60 50 3John Rivera 1:48.83 51 3Amel Tuka 1:49.01 52 1Mohamed Ali Gouaned 1:49.16 53 1Krishan Kumar 1:50.36 54 3Allan Ngitsi Chirwa 1:51.62 55 4Ole Jakob Solbu 1:51.66 56 1Hein Htet Aung 1:53.63 57 7Mohammed Dwedar 1:55.45 58 1Manuel Belo 1:58.32 59 6 1:59.56 60 5Faustino Prieto Alfaro 2:04.20 2Navasky Anderson
Semi-finals The first 2 athletes in each heat (Q) and the next 2 fastest (q) qualify for the final.
Rank Heat Name Nationality Time Notes 1 3Emmanuel Wanyonyi 1:43.83Q 2 3Adrián Ben 1:43.92Q, 3 1Slimane Moula 1:43.93Q 4 2Marco Arop 1:44.02Q 5 3Bryce Hoppel 1:44.04q 6 1Tshepiso Masalela 1:44.14Q, 7 1Ben Pattison 1:44.23q 8 1Mateusz Borkowski 1:44.30 9 3Yanis Meziane 1:44.30 10 3Simone Barontini 1:44.34 11 1Mohamed Attaoui 1:44.35 12 1Benjamin Robert 1:44.38 13 2Djamel Sedjati 1:44.49Q 14 1Abdelati El Guesse 1:44.55 15 3Andreas Kramer 1:44.57 16 2Saúl Ordóñez 1:44.74 17 2Catalin Tecuceanu 1:44.79 18 2Gabriel Tual 1:44.83 19 3Mark English 1:45.14 20 2Filip Ostrowski 1:45.30 21 2Daniel Rowden 1:45.38 22 2Ngeno Kipngetich 1:45.56 23 3Max Burgin 1:47.60 24 1Joseph Deng 1:48.12
Final The final was started on 26 August at 20:30.
Rank Name Nationality Time Notes Marco Arop 1:44.24 Emmanuel Wanyonyi 1:44.53 Ben Pattison 1:44.83 4 Adrián Ben 1:44.91 5 Slimane Moula 1:44.95 6 Tshepiso Masalela 1:45.57 7 Bryce Hoppel 1:46.02 8 Djamel Sedjati
References