The women's

800 metres The 800 metres, or 800 meters (American and British English spelling differences#-re.2C -er, US spelling), is a common track running event. It is the shortest commonly run middle-distance running event. The 800 metres is run over two laps of a ...

at the

2013 World Championships in Athletics The 14th IAAF World Championships in Athletics (Moscow 2013; ) was an international athletics (sport), athletics competition held in Moscow, Russia, from 10 to 18 August 2013. Initially, Russia at the 2013 World Championships in Athletics, Russia ...

was held at the

Luzhniki Stadium The Grand Sports Arena of the Luzhniki Olympic Complex, commonly known as Luzhniki Stadium, is the national stadium of Russia, located in its capital city, Moscow. Its total seating capacity of 78,011 makes it the List of football stadiums in R ...

on 15–18 August. The first woman to break 2:00 was

Hildegard Falck Hildegard Falck (née ''Janze'' on 8 June 1949) is a retired West German runner. At the 1972 Olympics she won a gold medal in the 800 m and a bronze medal in the 4 × 400 m relay with West German team. In the 800 m final she finished 0.1 seconds ...

in 1971. At this meet, it almost took 2:00 to get into the semi-final. Through the first three heats, the slowest automatic qualifier was

Halima Hachlaf Halima Hachlaf (born 6 September 1988) is a Moroccan runner who specializes in the 800 metres. She is the younger sister of Abdelkader Hachlaf, an international steeplechase athlete. She won silver medals in the 800 m at the Mediterranean ...

at 2:00.04, with each race being split at low 57. In the final heat Eunice Jepkoech Sum managed to maintain order, splitting at just under a more leisurely 59 and bringing the three qualifiers in slower than the slowest time qualifier, Lenka Masná at 2:00.31. At that, world leader

Francine Niyonsaba Francine Niyonsaba (born May 5, 1993) is a Burundian runner who specialized in the 800 metres and shifted to longer distances in 2019. She was the 2016 Rio Olympics silver medalist in the women's 800 metres. Her silver medal was the first Oly ...

, returning medalists

Caster Semenya Caster Semenya Order of Ikhamanga, OIB (born 7 January 1991) is a South African middle-distance runner and winner of two Olympic medal, Olympic gold medals and three World Athletics Championships, World Championships in the women's 800 metres ...

and Janeth Jepkosgei were all missing. In the final

Alysia Montaño Alysia Montaño (née Johnson) (born April 23, 1986) is an American middle distance runner. She is a six-time USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships 800 metres champion (2007, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2015). She gained significant public ...

displayed tactics reminiscent of

Johnny Gray John Lee Gray Jr. (born June 19, 1960) is a retired American world-class 800 meter runner from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s and the holder of the 600m world best. A four-time Olympian (1984-1996), in 1985 he set the United States records in t ...

, taking the race out in 26.80 and 56.06 splits opening up as much as a 15-meter lead on the field. Montaño hit the 600 at 1:26.45 with the lead but as she was slowing that's still a long way to get home. Sum had spent most of the last lap second to Montaño, but when defending champion

Mariya Savinova Mariya Sergeyevna Savinova (; born 13 August 1985) is a Russian former athlete who specialized in the 800 metres event. In 2017, she was found guilty of doping and was subsequently suspended from competition for four years. In addition to the ba ...

tried to go past her at the head of the straight, she responded and held off the challenge. Both of them passed a dying Montaño 40 meters out with the rest of the field gaining rapidly. As she was passed on the inside by teammate

Brenda Martinez Brenda Martinez (born September 8, 1987) is an American middle-distance runner and Olympian. Born in Upland, California, she won a silver medal in the 800 meters at the 2013 IAAF World Championships in Moscow and finished first in the ...

, Montaño tossed herself at the finish line, collapsing to the track in fourth as Martinez took the bronze. In 2015, Savinova and

Ekaterina Poistogova Ekaterina Guliyeva (née Zavyalova, divorced Poistogova; born 1 March 1991) is a Russian-born track and field athlete who specializes in the 800 metres and competes for Turkey. Career In the 800 meters event at the 2012 Summer Olympics, Guliyeva ...

were recommended for lifetime bans dating back to the 2012 Olympics as part of the wholesale Russian performance-enhancing drug scandal. On 10 February 2017, the

Court of Arbitration for Sport The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS; , TAS) is an international body established in 1984 to settle disputes related to sport through arbitration. Its headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland, and its courts are located in New York City, Sy ...

(Cas) officially disqualified Savinova's results backdated to July 2010. When medal reallocations were decided, Montaño was given the bronze medal and Martinez the silver.

Records

Prior to the competition, the records were as follows:

Qualification standards

Schedule

Results

Heats

Qualification: First 3 in each heat (Q) and the next 4 fastest (q) advanced to the

semifinals A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, w ...

Semifinals

Qualification: First 3 in each heat (Q) and the next 2 fastest (q) advanced to the

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final examination or finals, a test given at the end of a course of study or training *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which d ...

Final

The final was started at 17:50.

References

External links

800 metres results
at IAAF website {{DEFAULTSORT:2013 World Championships in Athletics - Women's 800 metres

800 metres at the World Athletics Championships 2013 in women's athletics