August 11, 2021

A Chart of Men's Olympic 800m Finals Since 1948

I was fascinated by the relatively slow times in the men’s 800m final this Olympics, and went down a rabbit hole looking through the history of the men’s 800m. Then I figured I might as well put my graphic designer knowledge to good use and share my findings!

Of the Olympics finals since 1948, the 800m final in 2000 had the most comparable result to the 2020 final — both had relatively slow winning times and very narrow range of times (less than 1.5 seconds difference between the first and last place runners):

  • Tokyo 2020 fastest/slowest times: 1:45.06 – 1:46.53
  • Difference of 1.47 seconds between 1st & last (9 runners)
  • The average of the Olympic final times is 2.92 seconds slower than the world leading time for the year
  • Sydney 2000 fastest/slowest times: 1:45.08 – 1:46.24
  • Difference of 1.16 seconds between 1st & last (8 runners, including one disqualified runner who finished around 1:45.60)
  • The average of the Olympic final times is 2.35 seconds slower than the world leading time for the year

TOOLS

Numbers app, Illustrator, Google/Wikipedia

SOURCES

Olympic finals results:

World Leading Times and World Records — I was unable to find a few of the world leading times in years prior to 1966:

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