Athletics at the 1976 Summer Olympics – Men's 100 metres
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Men's 100 metres at the Games of the XXI Olympiad | ||||||||||
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Venue | Olympic Stadium Montreal, Quebec, Canada | |||||||||
Dates | July 23, 1976 (heats, quarterfinals) July 24, 1976 (semifinals, final) | |||||||||
Competitors | 63 from 40 nations | |||||||||
Winning time | 10.06 seconds | |||||||||
Medalists | ||||||||||
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The men's 100 metres sprint event at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, was held at Olympic Stadium on July 23 and 24.[1] Sixty-three athletes from 40 nations competed.[2] Each nation was limited to 3 athletes per rules in force since the 1930 Olympic Congress. The event was won by Hasely Crawford of Trinidad and Tobago, earning the nation's first gold medal and making Crawford a national hero. Don Quarrie's silver medal made Jamaica only the third country to reach the men's 100 metres podium three consecutive times (after the United States, which had streaks of 9 Games and 7 Games, and Great Britain, which had medaled consecutively in 1920, 1924, and 1928). Valeriy Borzov of the Soviet Union was unable to defend his title, but by taking bronze became the third man to medal twice in the event. For only the second time (after 1928), the United States did not have a medalist in the event.
In the preliminary rounds, all the top athletes were running times in the 10.30s to 10.40s, while by the semi-finals some times dropped to the 10.20s. They took the top 4 from each semi, so Steve Riddick was left out of the final even though he had run faster than Guy Abrahams in the earlier semi. With the #1 time from the semis, Hasely Crawford was still placed in lane 1, somewhat hidden from the other top contenders in the center of the track, including Harvey Glance, 200 metre specialist Don Quarrie and the defending champion Valeriy Borzov. From the gun, Borzov was out fast in lane 3 gaining a half a metre on Quarrie next to him in 4, with Glance another half metre behind Quarrie. As Quarrie slowly gained on Borzov, Crawford was also speeding down lane 1. Quarrie went past Borzov, but Crawford was already ahead for a narrow victory, the leaning Borzov holding off Glance.