Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Men's 1500 metres

Men's 1500 metres at the Games of the XXX Olympiad
Venue	Olympic Stadium
Date	3–7 August
Competitors	44 from 29 nations
Winning time	3:34.08
Medalists
Taoufik Makhloufi  Algeria Leonel Manzano  United States Abdalaati Iguider  Morocco

Official Video

The Men's 1500 metres competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom, was held at the Olympic Stadium on 3–7 August.

The first round races were all very tightly packed, strategic affairs. The first race was the fastest, taking all but one of the time qualifiers into the semi-final. Andrew Wheating's 3:40.92 in the second heat was the slowest time qualifier, though it was exactly equal to Nick Willis' winning time in the last race. That race was broken up when Nixon Chepseba tripped sending several athletes scrambling to avoid the falling body. Chepseba ultimately finished 9th but was awarded a place in the semi-final on appeal, though no offending athlete was disqualified.

The first semi final was strategic from the start, when the sprinting started, Taoufik Makhloufi easily took the lead and held the position. Since it was strategic, no time qualifiers came from this semi. In the other semi, Chepseba took it out at a faster pace, to avoid getting caught in traffic. At the 800 mark, Nathan Brannen fell flat and was not able to get back into contention. When the sprinting started, Abdalaati Iguider looked to be the fastest. The slowest time qualifier was almost 7 seconds faster than Makhloufi winning the first.

Earlier on the day before the final, Makhloufi was also in an 800 metres qualifying round race, but he ran slowly and dropped out. Because of the "honest effort" rule, he was disqualified from further competition in the Olympics. It took an appeal by Algerian team officials to get him re-instated by claiming he had a known knee injury.

In the final, Makhloufi made a miraculous recovery from the injury in order to run. Kenyan Chepseba, and Kenyan born Bahraini Belal Mansoor Ali ran shoulder to shoulder until 600 to go when Chepseba then decided to take the lead solo. Behind him runners were three abreast, with Makhloufi and Silas Kiplagat trading elbows to be in position for the final lap. Another elbow just before 300 to go, and Makhloufi broke away with Kiplagat and Mekonnen Gebremedhin in hot pursuit. With Makhloufi gone, 8 meters ahead, Gebremedhin took over second at the head of the stretch, Iguider sprinting a step behind. Five meters further back, Leonel Manzano was starting to sprint around teammate Matthew Centrowitz, Jr.. As Iguider was edging ahead of Gebremedhin, Manzano was rocketing along the outside passing into second 30 meters from the finish. Iguider just barely managed to finish a fraction ahead of the fast closing Centrowitz for the bronze medal.

Competition format

The Men's 1500m competition consisted of heats (Round 1), Semifinals and a Final. In Round One the first six in each heat plus the next six fastest overall advanced for the semi-finals. In the Semifinals the first five in each heat along with the next two fastest overall qualified for the final.

Records

Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows:

World record	Hicham El Guerrouj (MAR)	3:26.00	Rome, Italy	14 July 1998
Olympic record	Noah Ngeny (KEN)	3:32.07	Sydney, Australia	29 September 2000
2012 World leading	Asbel Kiprop (KEN)	3:28.88	Fontvieille, Monaco	20 July 2012

The following National records were set during this competition

Norway National Record

Henrik Ingebrigtsen (NOR)

3:35.43 s

Schedule

All times are British Summer Time (UTC+1)

Date	Time	Round
Friday, 3 August 2012	20:05	Round 1
Sunday, 5 August 2012	20:15	Semifinals
Tuesday, 7 August 2012	21:00	Finals

Results

Official Video of First Round

Round 1

Qual. rule: first 6 of each heat (Q) plus the 6 fastest times (q) qualified.

Heat 1

No	Athlete	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Taoufik Makhloufi	Algeria	3:35.15	Q
2	Mekonnen Gebremedhin	Ethiopia	3:36.56	Q
3	Asbel Kiprop	Kenya	3:36.59	Q
4	Ross Murray	Great Britain	3:36.74	Q
5	Mohamad Al-Garni	Qatar	3:36.99	Q
6	Leonel Manzano	United States	3:37.00	Q
7	Florian Carvalho	France	3:37.05	q, SB
8	Mohamed Moustaoui	Morocco	3:37.41	q
9	Ryan Gregson	Australia	3:38.54	q
10	Belal Mansoor Ali	Bahrain	3:38.69	q
11	Yegor Nikolayev	Russia	3:38.92	q, SB
12	Álvaro Rodríguez	Spain	3:41.54
13	Teklit TeweldebErhan	Eritrea	3:42.88
14	Mamadou Barry	Guinea	4:05.08
15	Rabiou Guero Gao	Niger	4:05.46

Heat 2

Rank	Athlete	Nationality	Time	Notes
2	align="left"	align=left|  Saudi Arabia	3:39.42
1	Hamza Driouch	Qatar	3:39.67	Q
3	İlham Tanui Özbilen	Turkey	3:39.70	Q
4	Silas Kiplagat	Kenya	3:39.79	Q
5	Nathan Brannen	Canada	3:39.95	Q
6	Andrew Baddeley	Great Britain	3:40.34	Q
7	Andrew Wheating	United States	3:40.92	q
8	David Bustos	Spain	3:41.34
9	Dmitrijs Jurkevičs	Latvia	3:41.40
10	Dawit Wolde	Ethiopia	3:41.81
11	Niclas Sandells	Finland	3:42.67
12	Jamale Aarrass	France	3:45.13
13	Mohamed Mohamed	Somalia	3:46.16
14	Nabil Mohammed Al-Garbi	Yemen	3:55.46	SB
-	Amine Laâlou	Morocco		DNS

Heat 3

Rank	Athlete	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Nick Willis	New Zealand	3:40.92	Q
2	Abdalaati Iguider	Morocco	3:41.08	Q
3	Yoann Kowal	France	3:41.12	Q
4	Henrik Ingebrigtsen	Norway	3:41.33	Q
5	Matthew Centrowitz, Jr.	United States	3:41.39	Q
6	Carsten Schlangen	Germany	3:41.51	Q
7	Diego Ruiz	Spain	3:41.52
8	Aman Wote	Ethiopia	3:41.67
9	Nixon Chepseba	Kenya	3:42.29	Appeal
10	Emad Noor	Saudi Arabia	3:42.95
11	Eduar Villanueva	Venezuela	3:43.11
12	Andreas Vojta	Austria	3:43.52
13	Ciarán O'Lionaird	Ireland	3:48.35	SB
14	Samuel Vázquez	Puerto Rico	3:49.19

Semifinals

Official Video of Semifinal Round

Qual. rule: first 5 of each semifinal (Q) plus the 2 fastest times (q) qualified.

Semifinal 1

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Taoufik Makhloufi	Algeria	3:42.25	Q
2	Asbel Kiprop	Kenya	3:42.92	Q
3	Mekonnen Gebremedhin	Ethiopia	3:42.93	Q
4	Leonel Manzano	United States	3:42.94	Q
5	Henrik Ingebrigtsen	Norway	3:43.26	Q
6	Mohamed Moustaoui	Morocco	3:43.33
7	Mohammed Shaween	Saudi Arabia	3:43.39
8	Yoann Kowal	France	3:43.48
9	Andrew Wheating	United States	3:44.88
10	Ross Murray	Great Britain	3:44.92
11	Hamza Driouch	Qatar	3:49.40
12	Ryan Gregson	Australia	3:51.86

Semifinal 2

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Abdalaati Iguider	Morocco	3:34.00	Q, SB
2	Silas Kiplagat	Kenya	3:34.60	Q
3	Nick Willis	New Zealand	3:34.70	Q
4	Nixon Chepseba	Kenya	3:34.89	Q
5	Matthew Centrowitz, Jr.	United States	3:34.90	Q, SB
6	İlham Tanui Özbilen	Turkey	3:35.18	q
7	Belal Mansoor Ali	Bahrain	3:35.40	q, SB
8	Andrew Baddeley	Great Britain	3:36.03
9	Mohamad Al-Garni	Qatar	3:36.78
10	Yegor Nikolayev	Russia	3:37.28	PB
11	Carsten Schlangen	Germany	3:38.23
12	Nathan Brannen	Canada	3:39.26
13	Florian Carvalho	France	3:40.61

Final

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
	Taoufik Makhloufi	Algeria	3:34.08
	Leonel Manzano	United States	3:34.79	SB
	Abdalaati Iguider	Morocco	3:35.13
4	Matthew Centrowitz, Jr.	United States	3:35.17
5	Henrik Ingebrigtsen	Norway	3:35.43	NR
6	Mekonnen Gebremedhin	Ethiopia	3:35.44
7	Silas Kiplagat	Kenya	3:36.19
8	İlham Tanui Özbilen	Turkey	3:36.72
9	Nick Willis	New Zealand	3:36.94
10	Belal Mansoor Ali	Bahrain	3:37.98
11	Nixon Chepseba	Kenya	3:39.04
12	Asbel Kiprop	Kenya	3:43.83