The men's marathon at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, was held on Sunday August 9, 1992. The race started at 18:30h local time. One hundred and ten athletes from 72 nations started; 87 athletes completed the race, with Pyambuugiin Tuul from Mongolia finishing in last position in 4:00:44 (the first Olympic marathon runner to finish over 4 hours since 1908). The maximum number of athletes per nation had been set at 3 since the 1930 Olympic Congress. The event was won by Hwang Young-Cho of South Korea, the nation's first Olympic men's marathon medal. Koichi Morishita's silver was Japan's first medal in the event since 1968. Stephan Freigang of Germany took bronze, the first medal for Germany in the event though East Germany had won two golds (both by Waldemar Cierpinski) during partition.
Background
This was the 22nd appearance of the event, which is one of 12 athletics events to have been held at every Summer Olympics. Returning runners from the 1988 marathon included seven of the top eight finishers: gold medalist Gelindo Bordin of Italy, silver medalist Douglas Wakiihuri of Kenya, bronze medalist Hussein Ahmed Salah of Djibouti, fourth-place finisher Takeyuki Nakayama of Japan, fifth-place finisher Steve Moneghetti and eighth-place finisher Robert de Castella of Australia, and seventh-place finisher Juma Ikangaa of Tanzania. The world record holder, Belayneh Dinsamo of Ethiopia, did not enter; the 1991 World champion, Hiromi Taniguchi of Japan, did. The field was "very wide open as nobody had dominated the event in the preceding years."
Aruba, Bahrain, Cameroon, Liechtenstein, Mauritania, Mongolia, Namibia, San Marino, Slovenia, and Syria each made their first appearance in Olympic men's marathons; some former Soviet republics appeared as the Unified Team in the team's only Summer Games. The United States made its 21st appearance, most of any nation, having missed only the boycotted 1980 Games.
Competition format and course
As all Olympic marathons, the competition was a single race. The marathon distance of 26 miles, 385 yards was run over a point-to-point route starting at Mataró and finishing at the Olympic Stadium. The course ran along the Catalan coast, finishing with a "brutal" climb of 150 metres up Montjuïc to the stadium. Because of the timing of the race so close to the closing ceremony, an alternate finish line outside the stadium was used for runners finishing in over 2 hours and 45 minutes.
Records
These were the standing world and Olympic records prior to the 1992 Summer Olympics.
No new world or Olympic bests were set during the competition.
Schedule
It was a hot day, , somewhat mitigated by the late start at 6:30 p.m. The schedule put the top finishers in the stadium just before the closing ceremony started, but slower runners could not finish in the stadium due to the ceremony.
All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+2)
Date Time Round Sunday, 9 August 1992 18:30 Final
Results
Rank Athlete Nation Time Hwang Young-Cho 2:13:23 Kōichi Morishita 2:13:45 Stephan Freigang 2:14:004 Takeyuki Nakayama 2:14:025 Salvatore Bettiol 2:14:156 Salah Kokaich 2:14:257 Jan Huruk 2:14:328 Hiromi Taniguchi 2:14:429 Diego García 2:14:5610 Kim Jae-Ryong 2:15:0111 Harri Hänninen 2:15:1912 Steve Spence 2:15:2113 Ed Eyestone 2:15:2314 Boniface Merande 2:15:4615 Bert van Vlaanderen 2:15:4716 Rex Wilson 2:15:5117 Bob Kempainen 2:15:5318 Rodrigo Gavela 2:16:2319 Karel David 2:16:3420 Leszek Beblo 2:16:3821 Wiesław Perszke 2:16:3822 Yakov Tolstikov 2:17:0423 Tena Negere 2:17:0724 Osmiro Silva 2:17:1625 Abel Mokibe 2:17:2426 Robert de Castella 2:17:4427 Steve Brace 2:17:4928 Kim Wan-gi 2:18:3229 Isidro Rico 2:18:5230 Hussein Ahmed Salah 2:19:0431 Dominique Chauvelier 2:19:0932 José Montiel 2:19:1533 Thabiso Moqhali 2:19:2834 Juma Ikangaa 2:19:3435 Derek Froude 2:19:3736 Douglas Wakiihuri 2:19:3837 Ibrahim Hussein 2:19:4938 Gyula Borka 2:20:4639 Dave Long 2:20:5140 Mirko Vindiš 2:21:0341 Paul Davies-Hale 2:21:1542 Elphas Ginindza 2:21:1543 Rolando Vera 2:21:3044 Alessio Faustini 2:21:3745 Luis Soares 2:21:5746 Paul Kuété 2:22:4347 Helmut Schmuck 2:23:3848 Steve Moneghetti 2:23:4249 Konrad Dobler 2:23:4450 Ralombo Mwenze 2:23:4751 John Treacy 2:24:1152 Herman Suizo 2:25:1853 Peter Reynierse 2:25:3154 Nelson Zamora 2:25:3255 Daniel Böltz 2:25:5056 Joseildo da Silva 2:26:0057 Juan Camacho 2:26:0158 Cephas Matafi 2:26:1759 Mohamed Selmi 2:26:5660 Ildephonse Sehirwa 2:27:4461 Zerehune Gizaw 2:28:2562 Jaime Ojeda 2:28:3963 Smartex Tambala 2:29:0264 Pascal Zilliox 2:30:0265 Luis López 2:30:2666 Gian Luigi Macina 2:30:4567 Abdou Manzo 2:31:1568 Roland Willie 2:31:3269 Frank Kayele 2:31:4170 Hari Bahadur Rokaya 2:32:2671 Kuruppu Karunaratne 2:32:2672 Tommy Hughes 2:32:5573 William Aguirre 2:34:1874 Ferdinand Amadi 2:35:3975 Mohamed Khamis Taher 2:35:4676 Dieudonné LaMothe 2:36:1177 Myint Kan 2:37:3978 Calvin Dallas 2:38:1179 Saad Mubarak Ali 2:39:1980 Ryu Ok-hyon 2:40:5181 Alain Razahasoa 2:41:4182 Michael Lopeyok 2:42:5483 Benjamin Keleketu 2:45:5784 Moussa El-Hariri 2:47:0685 Lưu Văn Hùng 2:56:4286 Hussein Haleem 3:04:1687 Pyambuugiin Tuul 4:00:44 — Apolinario Belisle Abebe Mekonnen Bineshwar Prasad Peter Maher Diamantino dos Santos Luketz Swartbooi John Burra Dionicio Cerón Jorge González António Pinto Coelho Gelindo Bordin Carlos Grisales Alberto Cuba Talal Omar Abdillahi Csaba Szűcs Andy Ronan Mohamed Ould Khalifa Tonnie Dirks Dionísio Castro Joaquim Pinheiro Jan Tau Zithulele Sinqe Simon Robert Naali — Vladimir Bukhanov Salvador García
See also 1990 Men's European Championships Marathon (Split) 1991 Men's World Championships Marathon (Tokyo) 1992 Marathon Year Ranking 1993 Men's World Championships Marathon (Stuttgart)
References
External links Marathon Info