The men's 200 metres was an event at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. There were 78 participating athletes from 57 nations, with eleven qualifying heats (78), five quarterfinal races (40), two semifinals (16) and a final (8). The maximum number of athletes per nation had been set at 3 since the 1930 Olympic Congress. The event was won by Michael Johnson of the United States, the nation's fourth consecutive and 16th overall victory in the event. Frankie Fredericks of Namibia won his second straight silver medal, the eighth man to win multiple medals in the 200 metres. Ato Boldon earned Trinidad and Tobago's first medal in the event with his bronze.

Background

This was the 22nd appearance of the event, which was not held at the first Olympics in 1896 but has been on the program ever since. Four of the eight finalists from the 1992 Games returned: gold medalist Michael Marsh of the United States, silver medalist Frankie Fredericks of Namibia, fourth-place finisher (and 1988 bronze medalist) Robson da Silva of Brazil, and sixth-place finisher John Regis of Great Britain; fifth-place finisher Olapade Adeniken of Nigeria was entered but did not start. Michael Johnson, favored to win in Barcelona before food poisoning resulted in a semifinal exit, also returned.

By the summer of 1996, Pietro Mennea's world record of 19.72 had stood for almost 17 years. Carl Lewis (19.75 in 1983), and Marsh (19.73 in 1992) had come tantalizingly close to it, but eased up. Finally at the Olympic Trials, Johnson knocked .06 off the record. In Atlanta, Johnson (the 1995 World Champion) was the clear favorite and was attempting an unprecedented men's 200/400 double. (Two women had done the double; Valerie Brisco-Hooks in 1984 and Marie-José Pérec just completed her double less than ten minutes before the men's 200 metres final). Johnson occupied the same lane 3 as Pérec had just run in. But, just as in 1992, Fredericks (the 1993 World Champion) had snapped a Johnson winning streak shortly before the Games and could not be disregarded as a challenger.

Aruba, Comoros, Gabon, Guam, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates each made their debut in the event. The United States made its 21st appearance, most of any nation, having missed only the boycotted 1980 Games.

Summary

From the gun, Johnson took the lead, quickly making up the stagger on Ivan Garcia to his outside halfway through the turn. Coming on to the straight, Johnson led by a metre from Frankie Fredericks and Ato Boldon, with Jeff Williams fourth. Johnson continued to pull away to the finish and won by over three metres from Fredericks, with Boldon a further metre back. Obadele Thompson closed with a strong straight to edge past Williams at the line another three metres behind Boldon. Three strides past the finish line, while others were still finishing, Johnson looked back to see the clock had stopped at 19.32 and began celebrating. His time was a Beamonesque 0.40 of a second faster than the world record had been just five weeks earlier, 0.34 seconds faster than that performance. Far behind him, Fredericks had run 19.68, superior to the 1979 record and Boldon had run 19.80. At that point in time, Fredericks was #2 and Boldon was #7 performer of all time.

Competition format

The competition used the four round format introduced in 1920: heats, quarterfinals, semifinals, and a final. The "fastest loser" system introduced in 1960 was used in the heats and quarterfinals.

There were 11 heats of 7 or 8 runners each, with the top 3 men in each advancing to the quarterfinals along with the next 7 fastest overall. The quarterfinals consisted of 5 heats of 8 athletes each; the 3 fastest men in each heat and the next fastest overall advanced to the semifinals. There were 2 semifinals, each with 8 runners. The top 4 athletes in each semifinal advanced. The final had 8 runners. The races were run on a 400 metre track.

Records

These were the standing world and Olympic records (in seconds) prior to the 1996 Summer Olympics.

In the final, Michael Johnson set a new world record with a time of 19.32.

Schedule

All times are Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-4)

The competition returned to a two-day schedule after one Games with three days; now, however, there was no rest day between the two competition days.

Date Time Round Wednesday, 31 July 1996 10:4518:15 HeatsQuarterfinals Thursday, 1 August 1996 19:1021:00 SemifinalsFinal

Results

Heats

Heat 1

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Michael Marsh 20.27 2 Sergejs Inšakovs 20.41 3 Troy Douglas 20.41 4 Steve Brimacombe 20.45 5 Alfred Visagie 21.10 6 Mohamed Al-Houti 21.10 7 Takahiro Mazuka 21.13

Heat 2

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Ivan Garcia 20.49 2 Albert Agyemang 20.69 3 Elston Cawley 20.73 4 Owusu Dako 20.83 5 Thomas Sbokos 20.88 6 Anton Ivanov 21.20 7 David Wilson 21.85 8 Mohamed Ould Brahim 22.71

Heat 3

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Ato Boldon 20.26 2 Obadele Thompson 20.42 3 Anninos Markoullides 20.57 4 Carlos Gats 20.82 5 Joseph Gikonyo 20.88 6 Chris Donaldson 20.96 7 Tao Wu-shiun 21.25

Heat 4

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Michael Johnson 20.55 2 Erik Wymeersch 20.68 3 Percival Spencer 20.73 4 Frank Waota 20.78 5 Benjamin Sirimou 21.00 6 Antoine Boussombo 21.06 — Venancio Jose

Heat 5

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Francis Obikwelu 20.62 2 Edson Ribeiro 20.69 3 John Regis 20.78 4 Pierre Lisk 20.86 5 Lars Hedner 20.97 6 Thomas Griesser 21.20 7 Pascal Dangbo 21.65 8 Hadhari Djaffar 22.68

Heat 6

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Patrick Stevens 20.60 2 Jordi Mayoral 20.65 3 Claudinei da Silva 20.80 4 Joseph Loua 20.81 5 Boevi Lawson 20.99 6 Anderson Vilien 21.62 7 Peter Ogilvie 22.00 8 Gustavo Envela 22.09

Heat 7

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Linford Christie 20.64 2 Robert Maćkowiak 20.67 3 George Panayiotopoulos 20.69 4 Geir Moen 20.78 5 O'Brian Gibbons 20.79 6 Andrey Fedoriv 20.95 7 Brahim Abdoulaye 21.67

Heat 8

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Neil De Silva 20.54 2 Robson Da Silva 20.61 3 Oumar Loum 20.69 4 Dean Capobianco 20.76 5 Matthew Coad 21.25 6 Amos Ali 21.37 7 Laurence Jack 21.94 — Olapade Adeniken

Heat 9

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Jeff Williams 20.37 2 Vladyslav Dolohodin 20.57 3 Francisco Navarro 20.87 4 Alain Reimann 20.99 5 Ousmane Diarra 21.20 6 Mohamed Al-Aswad 21.77 — Ibrahim Ismail Muftah

Heat 10

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Koji Ito 20.56 2 Torbjorn Eriksson 20.77 3 Emmanuel Tuffour 20.85 4 Mark Keddell 20.93 5 Justice Dipeba 21.09 6 Carlton Chambers 21.32 7 Miguel Janssen 21.72

Heat 11

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Frank Fredericks 20.59 2 Seun Ogunkoya 20.78 3 Gary Ryan 20.78 4 Sebastian Keitel 20.96 5 Christoph Pöstinger 20.98 6 Sandro Floris 21.01 7 Chen Wenzhong 21.05

Quarterfinals

Quarterfinal 1

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Frank Fredericks 20.38 2 Jeff Williams 20.47 3 Obadele Thompson 20.53 4 Erik Wymeersch 20.59 5 Percival Spencer 20.59 6 Troy Douglas 20.63 7 Francisco Navarro 21.06 — O'Brian Gibbons

Quarterfinal 2

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Michael Johnson 20.37 2 Geir Moen 20.48 3 Neil De Silva 20.62 4 Robson Da Silva 20.65 5 Jordi Mayoral 20.68 6 George Panayiotopoulos 20.86 7 Dean Capobianco 21.03 8 Oumar Loum 21.31

Quarterfinal 3

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Ivan Garcia 20.36 2 Koji Ito 20.47 3 Steve Brimacombe 20.53 4 Robert Maćkowiak 20.61 5 Anninos Markoullides 20.63 6 Vladyslav Dolohodin 20.65 7 Elston Cawley 20.75 8 Frank Waota 21.14

Quarterfinal 4

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Michael Marsh 20.39 2 Patrick Stevens 20.43 3 John Regis 20.56 4 Sergejs Inšakovs 20.58 5 Albert Agyemang 20.87 6 Seun Ogunkoya 21.00 7 Joseph Loua 21.01 — Claudinei da Silva

Quarterfinal 5

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Ato Boldon 20.25 2 Francis Obikwelu 20.49 3 Emmanuel Tuffour 20.49 4 Linford Christie 20.59 5 Edson Ribeiro 20.60 6 Torbjorn Eriksson 20.83 7 Carlos Gats 20.84 8 Gary Ryan 20.89

Semifinals

Semifinal 1

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Michael Johnson 20.27 2 Ivan Garcia 20.34 3 Jeff Williams 20.39 4 Patrick Stevens 20.46 5 Francis Obikwelu 20.56 6 John Regis 20.58 7 Emmanuel Tuffour 20.61 8 Neil De Silva 21.26

Semifinal 2

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes 1 Frank Fredericks 19.98 2 Ato Boldon 20.05 3 Michael Marsh 20.26 4 Obadele Thompson 20.32 5 Steve Brimacombe 20.38 6 Koji Ito 20.45 7 Sergejs Inšakovs 20.48 8 Geir Moen 20.96

Final

Held on August 1, 1996.

Rank Athlete Nation Time Notes Michael Johnson 19.32 Frank Fredericks 19.68 AR Ato Boldon 19.80 4 Obadele Thompson 20.14 5 Jeff Williams 20.17 6 Ivan Garcia 20.21 7 Patrick Stevens 20.27 8 Michael Marsh 20.48

References

External links Official Report