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

Men's 1500 metres at the Games of the XVII Olympiad
Venue	Olympic Stadium
Dates	September 3 (final) (heats) September 6 (final)
Competitors	39
Medalists
Herb Elliott  Australia Michel Jazy  France István Rózsavölgyi  Hungary

The 1500 final was much more of an endurance race than contemporary strategic races. Michel Jazy 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

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Herb Elliott	Australia	3:41.50
2	István Rózsavölgyi	Hungary	3:42.15
3	Dyrol Burleson	United States	3:42.40
4	Terry Sullivan	Rhodesia	3:42.96
5	Yevgeny Momotkov	Soviet Union	3:43.80
6	Olavi Salonen	Finland	3:46.57
7	Rudolf Klaban	Austria	3:47.24
8	Arthur Hannemann	United Team of Germany	3:47.57
9	Laurie Reed	Great Britain	3:48.24
10	Joe Mullins	Canada	3:53.45
11	Tomás Barris	Spain	3:56.10
12	Mohamed Gouider	Tunisia	3:58.52
-	Zbigniew Orywał	Poland		DNF

Heat two

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Michel Bernard	France	3:42.34
2	Jim Grelle	United States	3:43.65
3	Arne Hamarsland	Norway	3:44.63
4	Brian Kent-Smith	Great Britain	3:46.21
5	Albie Thomas	Australia	3:46.95
6	Siegfried Valentin	United Team of Germany	3:46.99
7	Svavar Markússon	Iceland	3:47.20
8	Alfredo Rizzo	Italy	3:47.56
9	Andrei Barabaș	Romania	3:47.71
10	Muharrem Dalkılıç	Turkey	3:47.18
11	Dhira Phiphobmongkol	Thailand	4:24.4
-	Péter Parsch	Hungary		DNF
-	Egon Oehri	Liechtenstein		DNF

Heat three

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Dan Waern	Sweden	3:44.18
2	Michel Jazy	France	3:45.03
3	Zoltan Vamoş	Romania	3:45.07
4	Adolf Schwarte	United Team of Germany	3:45.46
5	Lajos Kovács	Hungary	3:46.20
6	Mike Wiggs	Great Britain	3:46.61
7	Merv Lincoln	Australia	3:47.18
8	Evangelos Depastas	Greece	3:48.77
9	Pete Close	United States	3:50.69
10	Olavi Vuorisalo	Finland	3:52.68
11	Stefan Lewandowski	Poland	3:59.75
12	Yair Pantilat	Israel	4:00.14
13	Kassim Mukhtar	Iraq	4:00.33

Final

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
	Herb Elliott	Australia	3:35.6	WR
	Michel Jazy	France	3:38.4
	István Rózsavölgyi	Hungary	3:39.2
4	Dan Waern	Sweden	3:40.0
5	Zoltan Vamoş	Romania	3:40.8
6	Dyrol Burleson	United States	3:40.9
7	Michel Bernard	France	3:41.5
8	Jim Grelle	United States	3:45.0
9	Arne Hamarsland	Norway	3:45.0

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