Athletics at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's 200 metres
| Men's 200 metres at the Games of the XXIX Olympiad
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Usain Bolt and Shawn Crawford in the closing stages of the final
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| Venue | Beijing National Stadium | ||||||||||||
| Dates | August 18 August 20 (final) |
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| Competitors | 63 from 53 nations | ||||||||||||
| Medalists | |||||||||||||
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Usain Bolt |
 Jamaica
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Shawn Crawford |
 United States
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Walter Dix |
United States
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The Men's 200 metres at the 2008 Summer Olympics took place on 18–20 August at the Beijing National Stadium.
The qualifying standards were 20.59 s (A standard) and 20.75 s (B standard).
Usain Bolt set a new world record of 19.30 s in the medal race and won by the largest margin of victory (0.52 s; after disqualifications 0.64 s) in an Olympic 200 m (Walter Tewksbury had a ca. 0.6 seconds margin in his victory in the first Olympic 200 m race in 1900).
Controversy arose within minutes after the medal race when Wallace Spearmon, who finished third in 19.95 s was disqualified for stepping out of his lane. United States officials filed a protest, but conceded after seeing the video and noticing that silver medalist Churandy Martina (19.82 s) who had celebrated the second ever Olympic medal for the Netherlands Antilles, also may have stepped out of his lane. They filed an appeal to disqualify Martina, which after more than an hour of deliberation was granted, through which the United States obtained both the silver and bronze medals. On March 6, 2009, the Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected an appeal by the National Olympic Committee of the Netherlands Antilles against Martina's disqualification.Shawn Crawford, who had been awarded the Olympic silver medal, reportedly gave his medal to Martina on August 28, 2008 in a tremendous show of sportsmanship.
Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows:
The following new world and Olympic record was set during this competition.
Each National Olympic Committee (NOC) was able to enter up to three entrants providing they had met the A qualifying standard (20.59) in the qualifying period (1 January 2007 to 23 July 2008). NOCs were also permitted to enter one athlete providing he had met the B standard (20.75) in the same qualifying period.
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