Athletics at the 1972 Summer Olympics - Men's 800 metres

The Men's 800 metres at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany took place on September 2, 1972.

ummary

The race went out very quickly for the first 200 m, with the two Kenyan athletes, Boit and Ouko, pushing the pace. Dave Wottle lagged far behind the rest of the field for the first 300 m, only catching up to the pack around the end of the first lap. The leaders went through the first 400 m in 52.3 seconds. Yevgeniy Arzhanov, the pre-race favorite, made a strong move on the final backstretch, and with only 20 m remaining seemed to have clinched an Olympic victory. Dave Wottle's last burst of speed, however, brought him across the line less than one tenth of a second ahead of Arzhanov, who stumbled and fell in the final step of the race.

Few had expected Wottle, who had suffered tendinitis in his knees earlier that summer, to defeat Arzhanov; the Soviet had not lost an 800 m final in four years. The American win over their Cold War rivals added extra drama to an already exciting race. Wottle himself was so surprised at winning the race, that he fogot to remove his golf cap when the U.S. national anthem was played at the medal ceremony. When reporters later asked him if his failure to remove the cap, a good luck charm which he always wore while racing, was a protest against the Vietnam War, Wottle replied that he had merely forgotten, and apologized to the American people. [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,676720,00.html]

Final

ee also

* Athletics at the 1972 Summer Olympics
* 800 metres

References

* [http://todor66.com/olim/1972/Athletics/Men_800m.html Results]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LHid-nC45k&eurl= Video of the Race]