Athletics at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Women's 1500 metres
Rank Name Nationality Time
1 Ludmila Bragina Soviet Union 4:01.38
2 Gunhild Hoffmeister East Germany 4:02.83
3 Paola Pigni Italy 4:02.85
4 Karin Burneleit East Germany 4:04.11
5 Sheila Carey Great Britain 4:04.81
6 Ilja Keizer Netherlands 4:05.13
7 Tamara Pangelova Soviet Union 4:06.45
8 Jenny Orr Australia 4:12.15
9 Berny Boxem Netherlands 4:13.10
- Ellen Tittel West Germany DNF
Final
Nine participants of the 1500 final . Bragina is leading and is not seen in the image . She is followed by Keizer , Carey and Hoffmeister .
These are the official results of the Women's 1500 metres event at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. The competition was held on 4 of September & 9 of September. This was the first time this distance was held for women at the Olympics. Ludmila Bragina had just set the world record a month and a half earlier, knocking two and a half seconds off of Karin Burneleit's previous record. Burneleit was in the field, as were previous record holders Jaroslava Jehličková and Paola Pigni. In the first heat, Bragina improved upon her world record by .4. A step behind her, seventeen year old Glenda Reiser set the world junior record, also running faster than the world record at the start of that race. Reiser's time would also qualify as the World Youth Best. In the first semi final, Reiser was not so lucky, not only did she not run as fast, but she didn't qualify for the final. In the second semi final, Bragina again improved the world record by almost a second and a half, while Jehličková was eliminated. In the final, Berny Boxem was the early leader, while Bragina languished in dead last place. After the first 600 metres, Bragina decided to change that, moving to the outside and running past the field at a quicker tempo.