Athletics at the 1956 Summer Olympics – Women's 100 metres


The women's 100 metres competition at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia was held at the Olympic Stadium on November 29–30.
In the final, Betty Cuthbert clearly beat her teammate Marlene Mathews-Willard out of the blocks, with Heather Armitage and Isabelle Daniels out quickly in close contention. Christa Stubnick had a burst of acceleration to quickly draw even with Daniels as Armitage was unable to hold her speed. Cuthbert expanded upon her slight advantage to pull away to a clear win. Stubnick was able to separate slightly from Daniels with Mathews-Willard steadily gaining from the back. Mathews-Willard caught Daniels and almost nipped Stubnick, clearly the fastest moving athlete at the finish.

Competition format

The women's 100m competition started with six heats, where the fastest two from each heat qualified to one of the two semifinals groups. The three fastest runners from each semifinals group advanced to the final.

Records

Prior to the competition, the existing World and Olympic records were as follows.
World record11.3Warsaw, PolandAugust 4, 1955
Olympic record11.5Berlin, GermanyAugust 4, 1936

Results

Heats

Heat 1

Heat 2

Heat 3

Heat 4

Heat 5

Heat 6

Semifinals

Semifinal 1

RankAthleteCountryTimeNotes
1Christa Stubnick11.9
2Betty Cuthbert12.0
3Giuseppina Leone12.1
4June Foulds12.1
5Galina Popova12.2
6Catherine Capdevielle12.4

Semifinal 2

Final

RankAthleteCountryTime
Betty Cuthbert11.5
Christa Stubnick11.7
Marlene Mathews-Willard11.7
4Isabelle Daniels11.8
5Giuseppina Leone11.9
6Heather Armitage12.0