Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Men's 200 metres

Men's 200 metres at the Games of the XXX Olympiad
Venue	Olympic Stadium
Date	7–9 August
Competitors	55 from 41 nations
Winning time	19.32
Medalists
Usain Bolt   Jamaica   Yohan Blake   Jamaica   Warren Weir   Jamaica

Official video

Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Track events
100 m		men		women
200 m		men		women
400 m		men		women
800 m		men		women
1500 m		men		women
5000 m		men		women
10,000 m		men		women
100 m hurdles				women
110 m hurdles		men
400 m hurdles		men		women
3000 m steeplechase		men		women
4×100 m relay		men		women
4×400 m relay		men		women
Road events
Marathon		men		women
20 km walk		men		women
50 km walk		men
Field events
Long jump		men		women
Triple jump		men		women
High jump		men		women
Pole vault		men		women
Shot put		men		women
Discus throw		men		women
Javelin throw		men		women
Hammer throw		men		women
Combined events
Heptathlon				women
Decathlon		men

The men's 200 metres competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom was held at the Olympic Stadium on 7–9 August.^[1]

The semi-final round showed all three Jamaican athletes were the class of the field. In heat one, Yohan Blake had a huge lead and relaxed down the straightaway, almost too much as Wallace Spearmon and Christophe Lemaitre raced to the line behind him in the fastest heat of the day. Usain Bolt dominated the second heat, jogging and looking around for non-existent challengers down the straight. And in heat three, Warren Weir was running easily, easing up at the finish to let Churandy Martina take the first spot, knowing he had qualified in the second position. Slowest qualifier Alex Quiñónez, racing hard for his 20.37, was on the opposite side of a clear dividing line in the field.

In the final, Bolt, who was in lane 7, moved past his Jamaican teammate Weir after only 50 metres; coming off the bend and onto the final 100-metre straight, Bolt's lead over the rest of the field had grown to several metres, however Blake began to pull him back. Due to the lead he had built in the first 120 meters, it was Bolt who crossed the line first in a time of 19.32, already easing off before the line. In doing so, he became the first man in history to do the "double double" – winning both the 100 and 200 metres twice, back to back (he would later break this record by winning the 4 x 100m relay and completing the Double Triple, at the same Olympics). Blake took the silver medal, as he had done in the 100 metres final, again behind Bolt. His time was the fastest ever time to not win a gold medal. Weir completed the 1–2–3 sweep for the Jamaicans by winning the bronze medal, the second time in any international competition that Jamaica has achieved this (after the women did it in the 2008 100 metres).^[2]

Bolt's time of 19.32 was coincidentally the time he had beaten when he first broke the 200 metres world record at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, set by Michael Johnson at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics 200 metres.^[3]

The final was only the third time since 1928 (the others being the 1980 Olympics in Moscow which they boycotted, and also the 2000 Olympics in Sydney) that the United States failed to win a medal in the men's 200 metres, Wallace Spearmon finishing fourth with a time of 19.90, 6/100 second outside of a medal placing.

Competition format

The Men's 200m competition consisted of heats (Round 1), Semifinals and a Final.^[4] The fastest competitors from each race in the heats qualified for the Semifinals along with the fastest overall competitors not already qualified that were required to fill the available spaces in the Semifinals. A total of eight competitors qualified for the Final from the Semifinals.^[4]

Records

Prior to the competition, the existing World and Olympic records were as follows.

World Record	Usain Bolt (JAM)	19.19	Berlin, Germany	20 August 2009
Olympic Record		19.30	Beijing, China	20 August 2008
2012 World Leading	Yohan Blake (JAM)	19.80	Kingston, Jamaica	1 July 2012
Broken records during the 2012 Summer Olympics
2012 World leading	Usain Bolt (JAM)	19.32	London, United Kingdom	9 August 2012

The following new National records were set during the competition.

Swaziland national record	Sibusiso Matsenjwa (SWZ)	20.93 s
Ecuador national record	Alex Quiñónez (ECU)	20.28 s

Schedule

All times are British Summer Time (UTC+1)

Results

Official Video of the First Round

Round 1

^[5] Q = qualified by place; q = qualified by time; WR = world record; OR = Olympic record; WL = world leading; NR = national record; PB = personal best; SB = season best

Qual. rule: first 3 of each heat (Q) plus the 3 fastest times (q) qualified.

Heat 1

Usain Bolt after his heat

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1	Usain Bolt	Jamaica	20.39	Q
2	Aldemir da Silva Junior	Brazil	20.53	Q
3	Isiah Young	United States	20.55	Q
4	Alex Wilson	Switzerland	20.57	q
5	Noah Akwu	Nigeria	20.67
6	Michael Herrera	Cuba	21.05
7	Vyacheslav Muravyev	Kazakhstan	21.75
8	Jidou El Moctar	Mauritania	22.94	PB

Heat 2

Christophe Lemaitre before his heat

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1	Christophe Lemaitre	France	20.34	Q
2	Anaso Jobodwana	South Africa	20.46	Q
3	Aaron Brown	Canada	20.55	Q, PB
4	Likoúrgos-Stéfanos Tsákonas	Greece	20.56	q
5	Rondel Sorrillo	Trinidad and Tobago	20.76
6	Carlos Jorge	Dominican Republic	21.02
7	Cristián Reyes	Chile	21.29
8	Ibrahim Turay	Sierra Leone	21.90	PB

Heat 3

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1	Maurice Mitchell	United States	20.54	Q
2	Christian Malcolm	Great Britain	20.59	Q
3	Michael Mathieu	Bahamas	20.62	Q
4	Roberto Skyers	Cuba	20.66
5	Shota Iizuka	Japan	20.81
6	Sibusiso Matsenjwa	Swaziland	20.93	NR
7	José Carlos Herrera	Mexico	21.17
8	Joel Redhead	Grenada	21.22

Heat 4

Yohan Blake starts his heat

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1	Yohan Blake	Jamaica	20.38	Q
2	Bruno de Barros	Brazil	20.52	Q
3	Jaysuma Saidy Ndure	Norway	20.52	Q
4	Serhiy Smelyk	Ukraine	20.65
5	Paul Hession	Ireland	20.69
6	Xie Zhenye	China	20.69
7	Mosito Lehata	Lesotho	20.74

Heat 5

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1	Warren Weir	Jamaica	20.29	Q
2	Antoine Adams	Saint Kitts and Nevis	20.59	Q
3	Kamil Krynski	Poland	20.66	Q
4	Pavel Maslák	Czech Republic	20.67
5	Tremaine Harris	Canada	20.70
6	Marek Niit	Estonia	20.82
7	Reto Schenkel	Switzerland	20.98
N/A	Alonso Edward	Panama	DQ	R 162.7

Heat 6

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1	Alex Quiñónez	Ecuador	20.28	Q, NR
2	Wallace Spearmon	United States	20.47	Q
3	Shinji Takahira	Japan	20.57	Q
4	Brendan Christian	Antigua and Barbuda	20.63	q, SB
5	Jonathan Åstrand	Finland	20.73	SB
6	Aziz Ouhadi	Morocco	20.80
7	Sandro Viana	Brazil	21.05
N/A	Ben Youssef Meité	Ivory Coast	DNS

Heat 7

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1	Churandy Martina	Netherlands	20.58	Q
2	Kei Takase	Japan	20.72	Q
3	Jared Connaughton	Canada	20.72	Q
4	Amr Ibrahim Mostafa Seoud	Egypt	20.81
5	Arnaldo Abrantes	Portugal	20.88
6	James Ellington	Great Britain	21.23
7	Trevorvano Mackey	Bahamas	21.28
8	Jean-Yves Esparon	Seychelles	21.99

Official Video of the Semifinal Round

Semifinals

^[6]

Qual. rule: first 2 of each heat (Q) plus the 2 fastest times (q) qualified.

Heat 1

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1	Yohan Blake	Jamaica	20.01	Q
2	Wallace Spearmon	United States	20.02	Q
3	Christophe Lemaitre	France	20.03	q
4	Jaysuma Saidy Ndure	Norway	20.42
5	Likoúrgos-Stéfanos Tsákonas	Greece	20.52	PB
6	Bruno de Barros	Brazil	20.55
7	Jared Connaughton	Canada	20.64
8	Kei Takase	Japan	20.70

Heat 2

The start of the second semi-final

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1	Usain Bolt	Jamaica	20.18	Q
2	Anaso Jobodwana	South Africa	20.27	Q, PB
3	Alex Quiñónez	Ecuador	20.37	q
4	Aaron Brown	Canada	20.42	PB
5	Aldemir da Silva Junior	Brazil	20.63
6	Kamil Krynski	Poland	20.83
7	Alex Wilson	Switzerland	20.85
8	Isiah Young	United States	20.89

Heat 3

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1	Churandy Martina	Netherlands	20.17	Q
2	Warren Weir	Jamaica	20.28	Q
3	Christian Malcolm	Great Britain	20.51
4	Maurice Mitchell	United States	20.56
5	Brendan Christian	Antigua and Barbuda	20.58	SB
6	Shinji Takahira	Japan	20.77
N/A	Antoine Adams	Saint Kitts and Nevis	DQ	R 163.3a
N/A	Michael Mathieu	Bahamas	DQ	R 162.7

Final

Rank	Lane	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
01 !	7	Usain Bolt	Jamaica	19.32	WL, SB
02 !	4	Yohan Blake	Jamaica	19.44	SB
03 !	8	Warren Weir	Jamaica	19.84	PB
4	6	Wallace Spearmon	United States	19.90	SB
5	5	Churandy Martina	Netherlands	20.00
6	2	Christophe Lemaitre	France	20.19
7	3	Alex Quiñónez	Ecuador	20.57
8	9	Anaso Jobodwana	South Africa	20.69
				Wind: +0.4 m/s

References