Olympic Track & Field 2012 Day 1 Results: Qualifiers, Medal Winners & Highlights

The first day of the 2012 Olympic Games track and field competition began with a bang.

Tomasz Majewski of Poland won the men's shot put gold, and Tirunesh Diababa of Ethiopia won her second consecutive gold medal in the women's 10,000-meter.

Americans have been predicted to dominate in track and field, as they have historically done. However, of the two first medal events of the competitions, the US won only one bronze medal.

Men's Shot Put: Qualification

Group A

David Storl of Germany recorded the best score, 69 feet 4 3/4 inches, in the opening qualifier for the men's shot put competition.

Tomasz Majewski of Poland came in at second for the qualifier at 69' even.

Coming in at third was German Lauro of Argentina. He was considerably further back in the running with a distance of 68' 1".

With a distance of 66' 11 1/2", American Christian Cantwell barely hung on to qualify in fifth place.

Group B

American Reese Hoffa (70' 1") dominated Group B and recorded the highest mark of anyone in the qualifier round.

Ryan Whiting, a fellow American and third US shot-putter to qualify, posted a respectable second-place finish in Group B with a distance of 68' 2 1/4".

Canadian Dylan Armstrong came in closely behind Whiting and rounded out the top three with a score of 67' 2 3/4".

Women's Heptathlon: 100-Meter Hurdles

Heat 1

Karolina Tyminska won the first heat with 1091 points.

Heat 2

Natalya Dobrynska of Ukraine narrowly came away with a highly contested win in the second heat. She scored 1040 points, winning by 10.

Heat 3

Hanna Melnychenk, another Ukranian,  won Heat 3 with a score of 1077 points.

Heat 4

Lyudmyla Yosypenko, yet another Ukranian, won Heat 4 by one point with a score of 1087.

Heat 5

Jessia Ennis recorded the best overall score, by far, with a point total of 1195.

Women's Triple Jump Qualifications

Group A

Kimberly Williams pulled away with a close win in Group A. The Jamaican leapt a total of 47' 8" in her qualifying effort.

Hometown jumper Yamile Aldama nearly took the top place, coming in just short, three inches to be exact, of Williams' mark with a score of 47' 5".

Group B

Group B wasn't as close as the the former. Olga Rypakova of Kazakhstan recorded the best overall score at 48' 6 1/4".

Caterine Ibarguen of Columbia was the next closest with a distance of 47' 3 3/4".

Women's 100-Meter Preliminaries

Heat 1

Feta Ahamada of Comoros, the African volcanic off the coast of Mozambique, came in first in the first heat. She squeaked past Dana Abdul Razak of Iraq by a tenth of a second in a very close photo finish. Her time was 11.81 seconds.

Heat 2

Three runners qualified from Heat 2 including heat winner Delphine Atangana of Cameroon. Her 11.71 time was one-tenth of a second better than runner up Kaina Martinez of Belize.

Heat 3

Lorene Bazolo of Congo was victorious in the third heat. Her 11.87 seconds time was slightly better than Yee Pui Fong of Hong Kong's 12.02 runner-up mark. Both qualified.

Heat 4

Toea Wisil of Papua New Guinea recorded the best overall time at 11.60 seconds. Her country has no Olympic medals to their credit, and it would be a great story if Wisil's great performance in the 100-meter could break the ice for the island nation.

Women's Heptathlon: High Jump

Group A

Austra Skujyte of Lithuania recorded the highest jump of the opening rounds with an impressive 6' 3 1/2" jump.

Katarina Johnson-Thompson of Great Britain and Yana Maksimava of Belarus tied for second at 6' 2 1/4".

Fourth place was crowded as U.S. Olympian Fountain Hyleas tied Jessica Ennis of Great Britain and Nadine Broersen of the Netherlands with a height of 6' 1 1/4".

Group B

Lyudmyla Yosypenko of the Ukraine bested the field in Group B with a score of 6' 0".

Three Olympians, Ivona Dadic (Austria), Gyorgyi Farkas (Hungary), and Dafne Schippers all tied for second in Group B with scores all matching 5' 10 3/4".

Men's 400-Meter Hurdles: Round 1

Heat 1

Amaurys R Valle of Cuba won the first 400-meter hurdles heat with a 49.19-second performance.

Heat 2

Michael Tinsley of the USA clocked in with the best time in Heat 2 at 49.13 seconds.

Heat 3

David Greene of Great Britain bested the field in Heat 3 with a time of 48.98 seconds

Heat 4

Javier Culson of Puerto Rico narrowly bested Kerron Clement of the USA with a mark of 48.33, just 0.15 seconds faster than Clement's 48.48 time.

Heat 5

Angelo Taylor was the second USA track member to win his heat Friday. He earned the top mark narrowly, though, with a 49.29 mark, just eight one-hundredths of a second over Jehue Gordon of Trinidad and Tobago.


Heat 6

Felix Sanchez of the Dominican Republic handily won Heat 6 with a 49.24 mark.

Men's Hammer Throw Qualifcations

Ten of the 12 qualifiers for the men's hammer throw came from the Group A field.

Group A

Koji Murofushi of Japan bested the Group A competition on his way to qualifying in London. His distance of 257' 5 3/4" was good enough for second best among all qualifiers.

Kibwe Johnson of the USA came in fourth in the Group A standings and recorded a fifth best overall mark with a throw of 253' 2 1/4".

Group B

Krisztian Pars of Hungary and Valery Sviatokha of Belarus were the only two to qualify from Group B. Pars recorded the longest throw of the entire field with an impressive 260' 4 3/4" mark. Sviatokha on the other hand, scored the lowest of all qualifiers at 245' 0 1/5".

Women's 400-Meter: Round 1

Round 1 of the women's 400-meter is in the books and all three American women competing have won their respective heats.

Heat 1

Francena McCorory of the USA posted the best time in the first heat with a mark of 50.78, though she only bested Christine Ohuruogu of Great Britain by two one-hundredths of a second.

Heat 2

Amantle Montsho of Botswana posted the best time of all runners with an impressive 50.40 mark. She easily qualified and secured the best time in the entire qualifier.

Heat 3

Dee Dee Trotter became the second American to win her respective heat, also winning by a very narrow margin of three one-hundredths of a second.

Heat 4

Heat 4 saw similar American victory as Sanya Richards-Ross comfortably won the heat.

Heat 5

Antonina Krivoshapka of Russia easily won Heat 5 with a 50.75 mark.

Heat 6

Novlene Williams-Mills beat out the competition in Heat 6 and qualified for the next round of competition with her heat-best 50.88 mark.

Heat 7

Regina George of Nigeria recorded the best mark of the final heat with a 51.24 time. She would have only won Heat 4 with that score.

Men's Steeplechase: Round 1

Heat 1

The first heat saw the most qualifiers (6) of the three total heats.

Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad took the first heat with an impressive 8 minutes, 16.23 seconds, his score was the highest of anyone during the qualifier.

Evan Jager of the USA was impressive, narrowly recording the second-best time of the competition, coming up just short behind Mekhissi-Benabbad at 8:16.61.

Heat 2

Brimin Kiprop Kipruto of Kenya won Heat 2 with a mark of 8:28.62.

Heat runner-up Yuri Floriani of Italy wasn't far behind with a 8:29.01 mark.

Heat 3

The final heat had some stiff competition, all five of the qualifiers would have bested Kipruto of Heat 2.

Roba Gari of Ethiopia took the best time of the heat with a mark of 8:20.68.

Women's Heptathlon: Shot Put

Austra Skujyte of Lithuania was at it again in the shot put. Her 56' 9 1/2" mark was far and above anything anyone else was able to deliver. After that impressive performance, she looks like a lock to take gold in the women's shot put unopposed.

Group A

Skujyte's mark was very impressively ahead of the pack in Group A. The next closest hurler, Batalya Dobrynska of Ukraine threw a mere 49' 4 1/2". 

Just to put this dominant performance into perspective, Dobrynska's mark was nearly 7' shorter than Skujyte's and was the second best of all throwers.

Group B

Group B wasn't in the same league as the Group A women.

Kristina Savitskaya's leading mark of 48' 5 1/2" is only good enough for a sixth-place tie overall.

Women's 100-Meter: Round 1

The women's 100-meter opening round saw two Americans take leads in their heats.

Heat 1

Kell-Ann Baptiste of Trinidad and Tobago won Heat 1 with a 10.96-second mark.

Heat 2

Carmelita Jeter blew past all competitors in the second heat with a 10.83 mark.

Heat 3

Veronica Campbell-Brown of Jamaica was the fastest in Heat 3, scoring a 10.94 mark.

Heat 4

Blessing Okabare of Nigeria took home the Heat 4 crown with a 19.93 mark.

Heat 5

Allyson Felix became the second American to win her heat and third to qualify in the event with an 11.01-second mark.

Heat 6

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce became the second Jamaican runner to qualify and win her heat with an 11 seconds even mark.

Heat 7

Murielle Ahoure of Côte d'Ivoire posted a solid 10.99 seconds mark as the victor of the seventh and final heat.

Women's Discus Throw Qualifications

Two Chinese and one American woman qualified in the women's discus throw qualification.

Group A

Group A was led by Yarelys Barrios of Cuba with a throw of 216' 4" who barely posted the best overall throw of the qualifier.

Qualifying also in the round were Yanfeng Li (211' 6") and Xuejun Ma (205' 7") of China.

Group B

The second group saw the only American of three contestants advance to the next round. Stephanie Brown Trafton scored a throw of 212' 10", good enough for third best in her the group.

Nadine Muller (216' 2") of Germany led the group, though, by a small margin over Sandra Perkovic (215' 8") of Croatia.

Men's Long Jump Qualifications

Group A saw the best competition as eight of 12 of the qualifiers came from that group.

Group A

American jumper Marquise Goodwin tied Mauro Vinicius of Brazil for the longest jump of the qualifications at 26' 7 1/4".

Several were just on his toes including Russia's Aleksandr Menkov, Great Britain's Greg Rutherford, Sweden's Michael Torneus and South African Godfrey Khotso Mokoena.

Fellow American jumper Will Claye wasn't too far behind and qualified with a 26' 2 3/4" leap.

Group B

Group B was led by fellow leader Da Silva of Brazil and rounded out by qualifiers Christopher Tomlinson of Great Britain, Mitchell Watt of Australia and Sebastian Bayer of Germany.

Men's 1500-Meter: Round 1

All three Americans who were competing have advanced from Round 1 of the men's 1500-meter. It wasn't pretty though as they barely held on to qualify.

Heat 1

Taoufik Makhloufi of Algeria posted the best invidiual time for the first heat and the entire field with a 3 minute, 35.15 second mark.

American Leo Manzano posted the best time from an American and was in the middle of the Heat 1 pack. Heat 1 sent 11 of 24 of the first-round competitors onto the next round.

Heat 2

Mohammed Shaween of Saudi Arabia posted the best mark in Heat 2 with a 3:39.42 time.

American Andrew Wheating was the last to advance from the heat with a 3:40.92 mark.

Heat 3

Nicholas Willis of New Zealand posted the same mark as Wheating in the third and most lacking competition of the three heats.

American Matt Centrowitz recorded the second-to-last qualifying time with a 3:41:39 to give the Americans three competitors at the next round.

Men's Shot Put Finals

Americans Reese Hoffa and Christian Cantwell were both expected to medal in the men's shot put finals Friday. However, both were outmatched and it was Hoffa who narrowly came out on top to secure the bronze medal for the USA.

Reese posted the best throw in the qualifier earlier in the day.

Tomasz Majewski of Poland hurled a nearly 72' throw to seal the gold medal for Poland. He was bested by Storl earlier in the qualifier but got the best of him when it mattered most.

Gold medalist: Tomasz Majewski, Poland, 71' 10"

Silver medalist: David Storl, Germany, 71' 8 3/4"

Bronze medalist: Reese Hoffa, USA, 69' 8"

Women's Heptathlon: 200-Meter

Dafne Schippers of the Netherlands and Jessica Ennis tied to record the best time in the women's 200-meter with a 22.83-second mark.

Heat 1

Karolina Tyminska of Poland scored the best with a 23.71 mark.

Heat 2

Louise Hazel of Great Britain was atop the second heat at 24.48.

Heat 3

Switzerland's Ellen Sprunger led everyone in Heat 3 with a 23.59 mark.

Heat 4

American Hyleas Fountain ran the 200m at the 23.64, good enough for first in the fourth heat.

Heat 5

Overall leaders Dafne Schippers and Jessica Ennis blew away the fifth heat competition.

Women's 10,000-Meter Finals

Kenya made a big showing in the medal round of the women's 10,000-meter finals on Friday. However, they couldn't unseat Tirunesh Diababa after her gold-medal performance in 2008 in Beijing. In fact, Diababa destroyed the competition with an impressive final 400-meter push to give her a nearly six-second victory and second consecutive gold medal in the event.

No Americans finished within the top 10 of the race.

Gold medalist: Tirunesh Dibaba, Ethiopia, 30:20.75

Silver medalist: Sally Jepkosgei, Kenya, 30:26.37

Bronze medalist: Vivian Jepkemoi Cheruiyot, 30:30.44