Athletics at the 1992 Summer Olympics – Women's 800 metres

Women's 800 metres
at the Games of the XXV Olympiad
Women's 800 metres; at the Games of the XXV Olympiad
Venue	Estadi Olímpic de Montjuïc
Dates	31 July 1992 (heats); 1 August 1992 (semi-finals); 3 August 1992 (final)
Competitors	36 from 25 nations
Winning time	1:55.54
Medalists
	← 1988 1996 →

Official Video Highlights
@ 9:00

These are the official results of the women's 800 metres event at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. There were a total of 36 participating athletes, with five qualifying heats.^[1]

Race description

Favorites for the title were 1991 Tokyo World Championships gold medallist Liliya Nurutdinova for the Unified Team, Ana Quirot (Cuba), and Africa's hopeful, 19-year old Maria Mutola (Mozambique). Other potential rivals like the former East German athletes Sigrun Wodars (as Sigrun Grau, after a divorce) and Christine Wachtel, the one-two finish at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, had been eliminated in the preliminaries. The fastest semi-final was won by Nurutdinova. Dutch runner Ellen van Langen had set the fastest time of the season prior to the Games.^[2]

In the final, fearing Van Langen's final sprint, her main competitor, a confident Nurutdinova, set a rapid pace, running the first lap in a very fast time of 55.73, with Van Langen only in 6th position.^[2]^[3]^[4] Pressured by Mutola, Quirot and Ella Kovacs (Romania), Nurutdinova led the final from the start. Entering the final stretch she had a slight lead, but Van Langen, only fifth at 600 meters, moved through on the inside. With Nurutdinova moving away from the curb to block her challengers, Van Langen in the last 50m passed – still on the inside – to win a surprise victory in a time of 1:55.54, beating Nurutdinova (silver) and Quirot (bronze).^[2]^[3]^[4]

Van Langen later explained the secret of her success. “I think what I could do well is I could die very well in a race and still continue,” she said. “That is very hard, because it hurts running the 800 meters. You have to overcome some boundaries in yourself to continue when it hurts like hell. I was good at it. If the Olympic race would have been run by each athlete individual and the fastest time was the winner I would not have won,” she added. “I was also good in tactics, looking around me and taking the right decisions.”^[5]

Medalists

Gold	Ellen van Langen Netherlands
Silver	Liliya Nurutdinova Unified Team
Bronze	Ana Fidelia Quirot Cuba

Records

These were the standing world and Olympic records (in minutes) prior to the 1992 Summer Olympics.

World Record	1:53.28	Jarmila Kratochvílová	Munich (FRG)	July 26, 1983
Olympic Record	1:53.43	Nadiya Olizarenko	Moscow (URS)	July 27, 1980

Final

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time
	Ellen van Langen	Netherlands	1:55.54
	Liliya Nurutdinova	Unified Team	1:55.99
	Ana Fidelia Quirot	Cuba	1:56.80
4	Inna Yevseyeva	Unified Team	1:57.20
5	Maria de Lurdes Mutola	Mozambique	1:57.49
6	Ella Kovacs	Romania	1:57.95
7	Joetta Clark	United States	1:58.06
8	Lyubov Gurina	Unified Team	1:58.13

Semi finals

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time
1	Liliya Nurutdinova	Unified Team	1:58.04
2	Maria de Lurdes Mutola	Mozambique	1:58.16
3	Inna Yevseyeva	Unified Team	1:58.20
4	Joetta Clark	United States	1:58.22
5	Letitia Vriesde	Suriname	1:58.28
6	Charmaine Crooks	Canada	1:58.55
7	Lorraine Baker	Great Britain	2:02.17
8	Sabine Zwiener	Germany	2:02.64

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time
1	Lyubov Gurina	Unified Team	2:00.64
2	Ellen van Langen	Netherlands	2:00.68
3	Ana Fidelia Quirot	Cuba	2:00.86
4	Ella Kovacs	Romania	2:00.89
5	Sigrun Grau	Germany	2:00.91
6	Carla Sacramento	Portugal	2:02.85
7	Diane Edwards	Great Britain	2:04.32
8	Julie Jenkins	United States	2:06.53

Heats

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time
1	Sigrun Grau	Germany	2:00.31
2	Liliya Nurutdinova	Unified Team	2:00.37
3	Diane Edwards	Great Britain	2:00.39
4	Shiny Wilson	India	2:01.90
5	Stella Jongmans	Netherlands	2:02.26
6	Brigitte Nganaye	Central African Republic	2:15.70
—	R. Baguepeng Gangue	Chad	DSQ

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time
1	Joetta Clark	United States	1:59.62
2	Ellen van Langen	Netherlands	1:59.86
3	Carla Sacramento	Portugal	2:00.57
4	Christine Wachtel	Germany	2:01.39
5	Paula Fryer	Great Britain	2:02.72
6	Sukanya Sang-Ngeun	Thailand	2:09.94
7	Andrea Garae	Vanuatu	2:28.61

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time
1	Ella Kovacs	Romania	1:59.88
2	Letitia Vriesde	Suriname	1:59.93
3	Julie Jenkins	United States	1:59.96
4	Sabine Zwiener	Germany	2:00.87
5	Fabia Trabaldo	Italy	2:01.44
6	Sriyani Dhammika Menike	Sri Lanka	2:03.85 (NR)
7	Prisca Singamo	Malawi	2:20.84

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time
1	Inna Yevseyeva	Unified Team	1:58.58
2	Ana Fidelia Quirot	Cuba	1:59.06
3	Charmaine Crooks	Canada	1:59.52
4	Lorraine Baker	Great Britain	2:00.50
5	Leontia Sălăgeanu	Romania	2:01.44
6	Zewdie Hailemariam	Ethiopia	2:03.85
—	Carol Galea	Malta	DSQ

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time
1	Lyubov Gurina	Unified Team	2:00.27
2	Maria de Lurdes Mutola	Mozambique	2:00.83
3	Meredith Rainey	United States	2:01.33
4	Viviane Dorsile	France	2:01.54
5	Amaia Andrés	Spain	2:02.67
6	Gladys Wamuyu	Kenya	2:03.01
7	Edith Nakiyingi	Uganda	2:03.55
8	Mantokoane Pitso	Lesotho	2:29.77