Athletics at the 1896 Summer Olympics – Men's 1500 metres

The men's 1500 metres was the longest track race in the 1896 Summer Olympics. It was the last event on 7 April. The race had 8 athletes. It was ran in one round.

Men's 1500 metres at the Games of the I Olympiad
Venue	Panathinaiko Stadium
Dates	April 7
Competitors	8 from 5 nations
Winning time	4:33.2 OR
Medalists
Edwin Flack  Australia   Arthur Blake  United States   Albin Lermusiaux  France
	1900»

Background

The 1500 metres was one of the 12 athletic events that has been held in every Summer Olympics. In 1895, Albin Lermusiaux had the unofficial world record for this event. The world record holder did not run in the race.

Competition

The competition was all in one round.

The track was only 330 metres, even though modern tracks are usually 400 metres. The track had quick turns was made of loose cinders. Running was very difficult. Runners also turned clockwise, rather than modern counterclockwise turns.

Schedule

The exact times of each events were not written down. The 1500 metres was the last event of the second day.

Date		Round
Gregorian	Julian
Tuesday, 7 April 1896	Tuesday, 26 March 1896	Final

Summary

Albin Lermusiaux of France was in front for most of the race. However, Edwin Flack and Arthur Blake passed him in the last 100 meters.

Flack passed Blake, and beat him by 5 meters. This made Flack the first Australian Olympic winner. Lermusiaux finished in third, 15 meters behind. Carl Galle was in 4th.

The other Greek were all in last place. However, records do not say what position the last two ran in.

Results

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
	Edwin Flack	Australia	4:33.2	OR
	Arthur Blake	United States	4:33.6
	Albin Lermusiaux	France	4:36.0
4	Carl Galle	Germany	4:39.0
5	Angelos Fetsis	Greece	Unknown
6	Dimitrios Golemis	Greece	Unknown
7–8	Konstantinos Karakatsanis	Greece	Unknown
	Dimitrios Tomprof	Greece	Unknown

Records

World record	Thomas Conneff (USA)	4:15.6 (u)	New York City, United States	26 August 1895
Olympic record	New event	n/a	n/a	n/a

Edwin Flack set the first Olympic record of the event. His time was 4:33.2.

References

• Lampros, S.P.; Polites, N.G.; De Coubertin, Pierre; Philemon, P.J. & Anninos, C. (1897). The Olympic Games: BC 776 – AD 1896. Athens: Charles Beck. (Digitally available at la84foundation.org Archived 2008-05-27 at the Wayback Machine)
• Mallon, Bill & Widlund, Ture (1998). The 1896 Olympic Games. Results for All Competitors in All Events, with Commentary. Jefferson: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-0379-0. (Excerpt available at la84foundation.org Archived 2008-04-11 at the Wayback Machine)
• Smith, Michael Llewellyn (2004). Olympics in Athens 1896. The Invention of the Modern Olympic Games. London: Profile Books. ISBN 978-1-86197-342-9.