Athletics at the 1960 Summer Olympics – Men's 1500 metres


The 1500 final was much more of an endurance race than contemporary strategic races. Michel Bernard took the lead from the beginning and dared the field to stay with him. Arne Hamarsland and Jim Grelle struggled as the pack strung out quickly. With two laps to go, Herb Elliott upped the ante, taking the lead and pushing the pace. István Rózsavölgyi was the last to drop off with Jazy close behind Rózsavölgyi. But Elliott was gone, cleanly ahead going into the final lap. Waiting on the final backstretch, his coach Percy Cerutty prearranged that he would wave a yellow towel if Elliott was in danger of being caught from behind or close to the world record. A confused Elliott saw the towel and accelerated, pushing hard to the finish. Elliott's three second victory took an additional half second out of his own world record. His record would last for seven years before being improved upon by Jim Ryun. Behind Elliott, Jazy managed to catch Rózsavölgyi for the silver medal.

Results

Heats

The fastest three runners in each of the three heats advanced to the final round.
Heat one
RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
1Herb Elliott3:41.50
2István Rózsavölgyi3:42.15
3Dyrol Burleson3:42.40
4Terry Sullivan3:42.96
5Yevgeny Momotkov3:43.80
6Olavi Salonen3:46.57
7Rudolf Klaban3:47.24
8Arthur Hannemann3:47.57
9Laurie Reed3:48.24
10Joe Mullins3:53.45
11Tomás Barris3:56.10
12Mohamed Gouider3:58.52
-Zbigniew OrywałDNF

Heat two
RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
1Michel Bernard3:42.34
2Jim Grelle3:43.65
3Arne Hamarsland3:44.63
4Brian Kent-Smith3:46.21
5Albie Thomas3:46.95
6Siegfried Valentin3:46.99
7Svavar Markússon3:47.20
8Alfredo Rizzo3:47.56
9Andrei Barabaș3:47.71
10Muharrem Dalkılıç3:47.18
11Dhira Phiphobmongkol4:24.4
-Péter ParschDNF
-Egon OehriDNF

Heat three
RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
1Dan Waern3:44.18
2Michel Jazy3:45.03
3Zoltan Vamoș3:45.07
4Adolf Schwarte3:45.46
5Lajos Kovács3:46.20
6Mike Wiggs3:46.61
7Merv Lincoln3:47.18
8Evangelos Depastas3:48.77
9Pete Close3:50.69
10Olavi Vuorisalo3:52.68
11Stefan Lewandowski3:59.75
12Yair Pantilat4:00.14
13Kassim Mukhtar4:00.33

Final

RankNameNationalityTimeNotes
Herb Elliott3:35.6WR
Michel Jazy3:38.4
István Rózsavölgyi3:39.2
4Dan Waern3:40.0
5Zoltan Vamoș3:40.8
6Dyrol Burleson3:40.9
7Michel Bernard3:41.5
8Jim Grelle3:45.0
9Arne Hamarsland3:45.0

Key: WR = world record; DNF = did not finish