# Athletics at the 1980 Summer Olympics – Men's 200 metres

The men's 200 metres was an event at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. The competition was held on July 27, 1980, and on July 28, 1980. There were 57 competitors from 37 nations. The maximum number of athletes per nation had been set at three since the 1930 Olympic Congress. The event was won by 0.02 seconds by Pietro Mennea of Italy, the nation's first victory in the event since 1960 and second overall (tied for second-most with Canada behind the United States' 12 wins). This winning margin remains the narrowest in this event at the Olympics since the introduction of fully automatic timing. Great Britain earned its first medal in the men's 200 metres since 1928 with Allan Wells' silver. Don Quarrie of Jamaica, the defending champion, took bronze. Mennea (the 1972 bronze medalist) and Quarrie were the fifth and sixth men to earn multiple medals in the event.

## Summary

Random lane draw put the two semifinal winners on the outside, Leonard having the misfortune to draw lane 1, Mennea in lane 8. Wells was just inside of Mennea in 7 while Quarrie drew lane 4. Wells just eked into the final with a fourth place in his semifinal. Had timed qualification been involved, he only had the tenth-fastest time in the semis.
Wells, who disliked using starting blocks but used them, was out fast, making up the stagger on Mennea 40 metres into the race. Coming off the turn Mennea was two metres back, behind both Leonard and Quarrie. Mennea accelerated down the straight edging closer to Wells with every step. He caught Wells five metres before the finish and continued past him for the win, regarded as one of the great comebacks in Olympic sprinting. Quarrie was able to outlean Leonard for the bronze.

## Background

This was the 18th appearance of the event, which was not held at the first Olympics in 1896 but has been on the program ever since. Three of the eight finalists from the 1976 Games returned: gold medalist Don Quarrie of Jamaica, fourth-place finisher (and 1972 bronze medalist) Pietro Mennea of Italy, and seventh-place finisher Colin Bradford of Jamaica. The odds on favourite was Mennea, the current world record holder. Other favourites in the field included Quarrie, Silvio Leonard of Cuba, and Allan Wells of Great Britain.
Angola, Benin, Botswana, Guinea, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Mozambique, the Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Syria, and Zambia each made their debut in the event. France and Great Britain each made their 16th appearance, most of the nations competing in 1980 but one fewer than the United States, missing the event for the first time.

## Competition format

The competition used the four round format introduced in 1920: heats, quarterfinals, semifinals, and a final. The "fastest loser" system introduced in 1960 was used in the heats.
There were 9 heats of between 6 and 7 runners each (before withdrawals), with the top 3 men in each advancing to the quarterfinals along with the next 5 fastest overall. The quarterfinals consisted of 4 heats of 8 athletes each; the 4 fastest men in each heat advanced to the semifinals. There were 2 semifinals, each with 8 runners. Again, the top 4 athletes advanced. The final had 8 runners. The races were run on a 400 metre track.

## Records

These were the standing world and Olympic records (in seconds) prior to the 1980 Summer Olympics.
| World record | Pietro Mennea (ITA) | 19.72 | Mexico City, Mexico | 12 September 1979 |
| Olympic record | Tommie Smith (USA) | 19.83 | Mexico City, Mexico | 16 October 1968 |
No new world or Olympic records were set during the competition.

## Schedule

All times are Moscow Time (UTC+3)
| Date | Time | Round |
| Sunday, 27 July 1980 | 10:30 18:25 | Heats Quarterfinals |
| Monday, 28 July 1980 | 17:20 20:10 | Semifinals Final |

## Results
### Heats

Held on July 27, 1980.

#### Heat 1

| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Time | Notes |
| 1 | Cameron Sharp | Great Britain | 21.51 | Q |
| 2 | Tomás González | Cuba | 21.64 | Q |
| 3 | Pavel Pavlov | Bulgaria | 21.78 | Q |
| 4 | Nikolaos Angelopoulos | Greece | 21.98 | |
| 5 | Grégoire Illorson | Cameroon | 22.21 | |
| 6 | Rubén Inácio | Angola | 22.52 | |
| 7 | Casimir Pereira | Seychelles | 22.59 | |

#### Heat 2

| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Time | Notes |
| 1 | Pietro Mennea | Italy | 21.26 | Q |
| 2 | Ferenc Kiss | Hungary | 21.34 | Q |
| 3 | Olaf Prenzler | East Germany | 21.35 | Q |
| 4 | Mike McFarlane | Great Britain | 21.43 | q |
| 5 | Nabil Nahri | Syria | 22.14 | |
| 6 | Ahmed Mohamed Sallouma | Libya | 22.88 | |
| — | Abdul Majeed Al-Mosawi | Kuwait | DNS | |

#### Heat 3

| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Time | Notes |
| 1 | Don Quarrie | Jamaica | 20.87 | Q |
| 2 | Joseph Arame | France | 21.24 | Q |
| 3 | Peter Okodogbe | Nigeria | 21.42 | Q |
| 4 | Altevir de Araújo | Brazil | 21.49 | q |
| 5 | Cheikh Touradou Diouf | Senegal | 21.89 | |
| 6 | Henk Brouwer | Netherlands | 21.96 | |
| 7 | Paul Haba | Guinea | 22.70 | |

#### Heat 4

| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Time | Notes |
| 1 | Marian Woronin | Poland | 21.63 | Q |
| 2 | István Nagy | Hungary | 21.80 | Q |
| 3 | Gerardo Suero | Dominican Republic | 22.16 | Q |
| — | Aleksandr Stasevich | Soviet Union | DNF | |
| — | Théophile Nkounkou | Republic of the Congo | DNS | |
| — | José Luis Elias | Peru | DNS | |
| — | Emmanuel Bitanga | Cameroon | DNS | |

#### Heat 5

| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Time | Notes |
| 1 | Colin Bradford | Jamaica | 21.17 | Q |
| 2 | Leszek Dunecki | Poland | 21.30 | Q |
| 3 | Petar Petrov | Bulgaria | 21.59 | Q |
| 4 | David Lukuba | Tanzania | 21.76 | |
| 5 | Pascal Aho | Benin | 22.09 | |
| 6 | Roland Dagher | Lebanon | 22.27 | |
| 7 | Walter During | Sierra Leone | 23.12 | |

#### Heat 6

| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Time | Notes |
| 1 | Andrew Bruce | Trinidad and Tobago | 21.36 | Q |
| 2 | Allan Wells | Great Britain | 21.57 | Q |
| 3 | Aleksandar Popović | Yugoslavia | 21.65 | Q |
| 4 | Hammed Adio | Nigeria | 21.79 | |
| 5 | Perumal Subramanian | India | 22.39 | |
| 6 | Rudolph George | Sierra Leone | 23.20 | |
| — | Vladimir Muravyov | Soviet Union | DNS | |

#### Heat 7

| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Time | Notes |
| 1 | James Gilkes | Guyana | 21.07 | Q |
| 2 | František Břečka | Czechoslovakia | 21.49 | Q |
| 3 | Bernhard Hoff | East Germany | 21.53 | Q |
| 4 | Boubacar Diallo | Senegal | 21.56 | q |
| 5 | Joseph Letseka | Lesotho | 22.31 | |
| 6 | Lucien Josiah | Botswana | 22.45 | |
| — | Constantino Reis | Mozambique | DNF | |

#### Heat 8

| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Time | Notes |
| 1 | Osvaldo Lara | Cuba | 21.03 | Q |
| 2 | Christopher Brathwaite | Trinidad and Tobago | 21.13 | Q |
| 3 | Nikolay Sidorov | Soviet Union | 21.15 | Q |
| 4 | Vladimir Ivanov | Bulgaria | 21.28 | q |
| 5 | Alston Muziyo | Zambia | 22.47 | |
| 6 | Besha Tuffa | Ethiopia | 23.18 | |
| — | Pascal Barré | France | DNS | |

#### Heat 9

| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Time | Notes |
| 1 | Silvio Leonard | Cuba | 20.95 | Q |
| 2 | Bernard Petitbois | France | 21.16 | Q |
| 3 | Paulo Roberto Correia | Brazil | 21.27 | Q |
| 4 | Zenon Licznerski | Poland | 21.36 | q |
| 5 | Mwalimu Ally | Tanzania | 21.83 | |
| 6 | Sheku Boima | Sierra Leone | 22.93 | |
| 7 | Sitthixay Sacpraseuth | Laos | 24.28 | |

### Quarterfinals

Held on July 27, 1980.

#### Quarterfinal 1

| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Time | Notes |
| 1 | Don Quarrie | Jamaica | 20.89 | Q |
| 2 | Marian Woronin | Poland | 20.97 | Q |
| 3 | Osvaldo Lara | Cuba | 21.01 | Q |
| 4 | Ferenc Kiss | Hungary | 21.24 | Q |
| 5 | Bernard Petitbois | France | 21.32 | |
| 6 | Mike McFarlane | Great Britain | 21.33 | |
| 7 | Aleksandar Popović | Yugoslavia | 21.66 | |
| 8 | Petar Petrov | Bulgaria | 21.89 | |

#### Quarterfinal 2

| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Time | Notes |
| 1 | Allan Wells | Great Britain | 20.59 | Q |
| 2 | James Gilkes | Guyana | 20.83 | Q |
| 3 | Peter Okodogbe | Nigeria | 20.89 | Q |
| 4 | Olaf Prenzler | East Germany | 20.89 | Q |
| 5 | Christopher Brathwaite | Trinidad and Tobago | 21.02 | |
| 6 | Colin Bradford | Jamaica | 21.04 | |
| 7 | Altevir de Araújo | Brazil | 21.22 | |
| 8 | Pavel Pavlov | Bulgaria | 21.35 | |

#### Quarterfinal 3

| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Time | Notes |
| 1 | Silvio Leonard | Cuba | 20.93 | Q |
| 2 | Joseph Arame | France | 20.95 | Q |
| 3 | Bernhard Hoff | East Germany | 20.96 | Q |
| 4 | Cameron Sharp | Great Britain | 21.16 | Q |
| 5 | Zenon Licznerski | Poland | 21.22 | |
| 6 | István Nagy | Hungary | 21.38 | |
| 7 | František Břečka | Czechoslovakia | 21.47 | |
| 8 | Gerardo Suero | Dominican Republic | 21.75 | |

#### Quarterfinal 4

| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Time | Notes |
| 1 | Pietro Mennea | Italy | 20.60 | Q |
| 2 | Nikolay Sidorov | Soviet Union | 20.83 | Q |
| 3 | Leszek Dunecki | Poland | 20.87 | Q |
| 4 | Andrew Bruce | Trinidad and Tobago | 20.94 | Q |
| 5 | Vladimir Ivanov | Bulgaria | 20.96 | |
| 6 | Paulo Roberto Correia | Brazil | 21.01 | |
| 7 | Boubacar Diallo | Senegal | 21.10 | |
| 8 | Tomás González | Cuba | 21.19 | |

### Semifinals

Held on July 28, 1980.

#### Semifinal 1

| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Time | Notes |
| 1 | Silvio Leonard | Cuba | 20.61 | Q |
| 2 | Bernhard Hoff | East Germany | 20.69 | Q |
| 3 | Marian Woronin | Poland | 20.75 | Q |
| 4 | Allan Wells | Great Britain | 20.75 | Q |
| 5 | James Gilkes | Guyana | 20.87 | |
| 6 | Peter Okodogbe | Nigeria | 21.03 | |
| 7 | Andrew Bruce | Trinidad and Tobago | 21.16 | |
| 8 | Ferenc Kiss | Hungary | 21.17 | |

#### Semifinal 2

| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Time | Notes |
| 1 | Pietro Mennea | Italy | 20.70 | Q |
| 2 | Don Quarrie | Jamaica | 20.76 | Q |
| 3 | Leszek Dunecki | Poland | 20.82 | Q |
| 4 | Osvaldo Lara | Cuba | 20.93 | Q |
| 5 | Olaf Prenzler | East Germany | 21.00 | |
| 6 | Joseph Arame | France | 21.05 | |
| 7 | Nikolay Sidorov | Soviet Union | 21.17 | |
| 8 | Cameron Sharp | Great Britain | 21.24 | |

### Final

Held on July 28, 1980.
| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Time |
| | Pietro Mennea | Italy | 20.19 |
| | Allan Wells | Great Britain | 20.21 |
| | Don Quarrie | Jamaica | 20.29 |
| 4 | Silvio Leonard | Cuba | 20.30 |
| 5 | Bernhard Hoff | East Germany | 20.50 |
| 6 | Leszek Dunecki | Poland | 20.68 |
| 7 | Marian Woronin | Poland | 20.81 |
| 8 | Osvaldo Lara | Cuba | 21.19 |