Athletics at the 1976 Summer Olympics – Men's 800 metres
| Men's 800 metres at the Games of the XXI Olympiad
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| Medalists | |||||||||||||
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Alberto Juantorena |
 Cuba
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Ivo van Damme |
 Belgium
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Rick Wohlhuter |
 United States
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These are the official results of the Men's 800 metres event at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. The competition was held on July 23, 1976, July 24, 1976, and on July 25, 1976.
From the gun Alberto Juantorena took an apparent lead against the field through the staggered start. Passing the break at 300 metres, the long striding Cuban was a couple of steps ahead of the noticeably smaller American Rick Wohlhuter. Sriram Singh came from more than 10 metres back at the break to sprint past Juantorena and the rest of the field, to take the lead just after the bell. Singh's lead was short lived as the field bunched then started to make their way around him. Wohlhuter stuck less than a mere step behind Juantorena all the way through the final turn as Ivo van Damme, Willi Wülbeck and future champion Steve Ovett jockeyed for position. Coming off the turn, Juantorena found more speed to pull away from Wohlhuter. As he struggled down the home stretch, Wohlhuter was passed by van Damme 20 metres before the finish.
Juantorena's 1:43.5 clearly broke Marcello Fiasconaro's hand timed world record of 1:43.7. When automatic times became a requirement the following year, the time of 1:43.50, accurate to the hundredth, became the world record. Despite the erratic pace, Singh's time in 7th place stood as the Asian record until it was broken by Lee Jin-il in 1994.
These are the standing world and Olympic records (in seconds) prior to the 1976 Summer Olympics.
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