The men's 10,000 metres event at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich was held on 31 August and 3 September. This event featured a qualifying round for the first time since the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp. The favorites in the event included Belgium's Emiel Puttemans, Great Britain's Dave Bedford, and Finland's Lasse Virén. The winning margin was 1.00 second.

The men's 10,000 metres final was notable for Lasse Virén's world record performance. At the start of the race, Bedford led the pace; he maintained a world record pace at the 4000 m mark, and he still led halfway through the race. On the 12th lap, just before the halfway point, Virén and Tunisia's Mohammed Gammoudi, 10,000 m bronze medalist and 5000 m gold medalist in the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, tangled into each other and fell onto the track. Both recovered, and while Gammoudi fell out of the race two laps later, Virén caught up to the front and passed Bedford to take the lead at about the 6000 m mark.

With Virén leading for the rest of the race, the lead pack reduced to five competitors with 600 m remaining when he made his charge. He ran the final lap (the last 400 m) in 56.4 seconds; he won the gold medal, beating runner-up Puttemans by 7 m and setting a world record time of 27:38.35. Virén would go on to win the 5000 metres event, where he would set an Olympic record there; he also went on to win both the 10,000 metres and 5000 metres races at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.

The Guardian listed Virén's world record performance as the greatest sport comeback of all time.

Heats The top four runners in each of the three heats (blue) and the next three fastest (green), advanced to the final round.

Heat one Rank Name Nationality Time Notes 1 Emiel Puttemans 27:53.28 OR 2 Dave Bedford 27:53.64 3 Javier Álvarez 28:08.58 4 Abdel Kader Zaddem 28:14.70 5 Josef Jánský 28:23.15 6 Anatoly Badrankov 28:35.84 7 Noël Tijou 28:36.08 8 Werner Dössegger 28:36.4 9 Tadesse Wolde-Medhin 28:45.4 10 Akio Usami 29:24.8 11 Jeff Galloway 29:35.0 12 Naftali Temu 30:19.6 13 Esaie Fongang 31:32.6 14 P. C. Suppiah 31:59.2 15 Crispin Quispe 32:31.8 16 Giuseppe Cindolo 33:03.4 – Günter Mielke DNF – Usaia Sotutu DNF

Heat two Rank Name Nationality Time 1 Mohammed Gammoudi 27:54.69 2 Mariano Haro 27:55.89 3 Frank Shorter 27:58.23 4 Lasse Virén 28:04.41 5 Paul Mose 28:18.74 6 Rashid Sharafetdinov 28:24.64 7 Wohib Masresha 28:28.2 8 Pedro Miranda 28:35.8 9 Karel Lismont 28:41.8 10 Neil Cusack 28:45.8 11 Dave Holt 28:46.8 12 Keisuke Sawaki 29:29.0 13 Rafael Pérez 29:36.6 14 Julio Quevedo 30:08.4 15 Abdel Hamid Khamis 30:19.2 16 Lucien Rosa 30:20.2 – Richard Mabuza DNF – Abdi Gulet DNS – Per Halle DNS

Heat three Rank Name Nationality Time 1 Miruts Yifter 28:18.11 2 Willy Polleunis 28:19.71 3 Pavlo Andreiev 28:20.97 4 Dane Korica 28:22.24 5 Juan Martínez 28:23.14 6 Lachie Stewart 28:31.33 7 Arne Risa 28:31.74 8 Jon Anderson 28:34.2 9 Carlos Lopes 28:53.6 10 Albrecht Moser 29:05.8 11 Richard Juma 29:13.0 12 Domingo Tibaduiza 29:24.0 13 Shaq Musa Medani 29:32.8 14 Manfred Letzerich 29:37.8 15 Hikmet Şen 29:51.8 – Anilus Joseph DNF – Gavin Thorley DNF – Juha Väätäinen DNS – Edmundo Warnke DNS

Final Rank Name Nationality Time Notes Lasse Virén 27:38.35 WR Emiel Puttemans 27:39.35 Miruts Yifter 27:40.96 4 Mariano Haro 27:48.14 5 Frank Shorter 27:51.32 6 Dave Bedford 28:05.44 7 Dane Korica 28:15.18 8 Abdel Kader Zaddem 28:18.17 9 Josef Jánský 28:23.59 10 Juan Martínez 28:44.08 11 Pavlo Andreiev 28:46.27 12 Javier Álvarez 28:56.38 13 Paul Mose 29:02.87 14 Willy Polleunis 29:10.15 – Mohammed Gammoudi DNF

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