100 metres, Men

The event was considered wide-open at the beginning of the year, as no sprinter had been dominant since the 1908 Olympics. From 1909-1911, three different American sprinters had won the AAU Championship (William Martin [1909], Jim Rosenberger [1910], and Gwinn Henry [1911]), but none of them competed at Stockholm in this event. South Africa’s George Patching was also present, who had won the 1912 AAA Championship earlier in the year. At the three United States Olympic Trials, Ira Courtney won the Western trial, Clement Wilson the Central, and Howard Drew the Eastern trial. In the Eastern meet, Ralph Craig finished second to Drew. The world record for 100 metres was 10.5, shared by three Germans, Richard Rau, Erwin Kern, and Emil Ketterer. All three competed at Stockholm, but Ketterer did not finish in round one, and Rau and Kern were eliminated in the semi-finals.

In the first round, America’s Donald Lippincott broke the Olympic record in heat 16, with a 10.6 clocking. The six semi-finals advanced only the winner of each heat to the final. Five of the finalists were from the United States - Ralph Craig, Howard Drew, Alvah Meyer, Frank Belote, and Donald Lippincott. The fastest times in the semis were 10.7, posted by both Craig and Meyer.

The final began without Drew, who had strained a muscle at the finish of his semi-final heat and could not start. The final was marked by multiple false starts - listed as six, seven, or eight in various sources. After one of the false starts, Craig and Lippincott ran the entire 100 metres. Craig noted many years later, “There were seven false starts, and I made one of them. Another American who had competed in the Paris Games - those 1900 Games were kind of horrendous, you know - he told me if you ever get to the Olympics, if anyone moves a muscle, you go too. Don Lippincott and I ran the whole hundred meters on one false start. The foreign officials were totally incompetent, and I was afraid not to keep running even though they fired the recall gun. I was told, don’t take a chance - go! - so I did. They did fire the recall gun, but I didn’t believe it.”

After the false starts, Patching took the early lead, but he was eventually defeated by three Americans, with Craig winning narrowly. Craig would later make the 1948 Olympic team as a yachtsman, and he carried the U.S. flag at the 1948 Opening Ceremony, but he was only an alternate and did not actually compete at the 1948 London Olympics.