The men's
1500 metres
The 1500 metres or 1,500-metre run (typically pronounced 'fifteen-hundred metres') is the foremost middle distance track event in athletics. The distance has been contested at the Summer Olympics since 1896 and the World Championships in Athle ...
event at the
1948 Olympic Games took place August 4 and August 6. Thirty-six athletes from 22 nations competed.
[ The maximum number of athletes per nation had been set at 3 since the 1930 Olympic Congress. The final was won by Swede ]Henry Eriksson
Knut Henry "Krylbo" Eriksson (23 January 1920 – 8 January 2000) was a Swedish middle-distance runner who specialized in the 1500 m event. In 1946 he finished second behind Lennart Strand, both at the national and European Championships. On 15 ...
.Lennart Strand
Lennart Strand (13 June 1921—23 January 2004) was a Swedish middle-distance runner who specialized in the 1500 m. In this event he won the national title in 1945–47, 1949 and 1950 and the European title in 1946, beating his compatriot Henry Er ...
took Sweden's second medal 0.6 seconds later. Willem Slijkhuis
Willem Frederik "Wim" Slijkhuis (13 January 1923 – 28 June 2003) was a Dutch athlete. During his career that lasted from 1939 to 1954 he was a world's top middle distance runner, excelling in distances from 1500 to 5000 metres.
Slijkhuis began ...
earned bronze, with the Netherlands also receiving its first medal in the 1500 metres.
Background
This was the 11th appearance of the event, which is one of 12 athletics events to have been held at every Summer Olympics. None of the finalists from the pre-war 1936 Games returned. The 1500 metres landscape had shifted strongly towards Sweden during World War II; the nation had never won an Olympic medal in the sport before the war but was aiming for a sweep in 1948 despite Arne Andersson
Arne Andersson (27 October 1917 – 1 April 2009) was a Swedish middle distance runner who became famous for his rivalry with his compatriot Gunder Hägg in the 1940s. Anderson set a 1500 metres world record in Gothenburg in August 1943 with a ...
and being declared ineligible professionals. The team in London was Lennart Strand
Lennart Strand (13 June 1921—23 January 2004) was a Swedish middle-distance runner who specialized in the 1500 m. In this event he won the national title in 1945–47, 1949 and 1950 and the European title in 1946, beating his compatriot Henry Er ...
(1946 European champion, world list leader in 1947), Henry Eriksson
Knut Henry "Krylbo" Eriksson (23 January 1920 – 8 January 2000) was a Swedish middle-distance runner who specialized in the 1500 m event. In 1946 he finished second behind Lennart Strand, both at the national and European Championships. On 15 ...
(1946 European runner-up, second on world list in 1947), and Gösta Bergkvist (third on the world list in 1947).
Competition format
The competition consisted of two rounds, the format used since 1908. The number of semifinals remained at four, with between 7 and 9 runners in each. The top three runners in each heat advanced to the final, resulting in the typical 12-man final race.[Official Report, p. 249.]
Records
These were the standing world and Olympic records prior to the 1948 Summer Olympics.
No world or Olympic records were set during the competition.
Schedule
All times are British Summer Time (UTC+1
UTC+01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in:
*Central European Time
*West Africa Time
*Western European Summer Time
**B ...
).
Results
Semifinals
Semifinal 1
Semifinal 2
Semifinal 3
Semifinal 4
Final
The results of the final past the first six places are disputed. The Official Report lists the times and places of the top six runners, but all others are marked simply as "also competed."[Official Report, p. 249.] The table below presents the results as shown by Olympedia, "based on information from Richard Hymans, British athletics statistical expert" and "supplemented . . . by various descriptions from multiple national sources, including a Swedish radio report of the finish of the race, which definitively gives Garay as placing seventh."[ Below the main table, alternative placements are shown.
; Alternative placements
]
References
Notes
*Organising Committee for the XIV Olympiad, The (1948)
The Official Report of the Organising Committee for the XIV Olympiad
''LA84 Foundation
The LA84 Foundation (known until June 2007 as the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles) is a private, nonprofit institution created by the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee to manage Southern California's endowment from the 1984 Olym ...
''. Retrieved 4 September 2016.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Athletics At The 1948 Summer Olympics - Men's 1500 Metres
Athletics at the 1948 Summer Olympics
1500 metres at the Olympics
Men's events at the 1948 Summer Olympics