World record: Saïd Aouita, Morocco 3:29.46 West Berlin, West Germany 23 August 1985
Olympic record: Sebastian Coe, Great Britain 3:32.53 Los Angeles, United States 11 August 1984
Twenty men ran quicker than 3:40 in the first round as only one heat
saw a race slower than that level. Kibet was the fastest heat winner –
3:36.32, while Chesire won the slow race – 3:44.06. Morceli, the big
favourite, won the first semi in 3:39.22 with a 53.0 last lap, while
Suleiman won the other heat in a startling 3:34.77 – the fastest prelim-
inary race ever – ahead of Cacho, 3:34.91. Again, no-one wanted to set
the pace in the final, so Chesire found himself in the lead, and took the
field though three laps, passing the bell in 2:49.7. Cacho was third, and
Morceli, not fully recovered from an early season injury, buried in the
pack. He didn’t react when Cacho made his move. With 250m to go a
gap opened on the inside and Cacho darted through it and was never
headed. Leading Chesire by a metre off the final bend he eventually
won by 4m despite looking round six times. His last lap was a scintil-
lating 50.3
ESP
MAR
QAT
KEN
GER
ALG
USA
