Olympic Games 1960
Pictures which were beamed around the world: 6th September 1960, shortly after 16.00
'Davis or me,just 5 metres to go, just two... the finishing-line.I gave it everything I had got and lunged forward towards the finishing-line.. and if not victory, then at least the same time ... I fall to the ground. There was a lot of murmuring and a real buzz in the stadium, the judges are conferring. Minutes go by - Davis or me? - endless minutes. All of a sudden one of the judges moves away from the group and approaches Otis Davis and says something to him. Davis makes an enormous leap, he is jumping around and celebrating..he has won Gold, I've won Silver. A world-record for Davis and for me. The lunge towards the finishing-line had paid off....'
Results of the 400 metre Final.
GOLD Otis Davis, USA 44,9sec
New World & Olymic Record
Time in heats 46.8/45.9/45.5
SILBER Carl Kaufmann, GER 44,9sec
New World & Olympic Record
New European and German Record
Time in heats 47,3/46,5/45,7 BRONZE Malcolm Spencer, RSA 45,5sec 4th Milkha Singh, IND 45,6sec 5th Manfred Kinder, GER 45,9sec 6th Earl Young, USA 45,9sec
The 1960 Rome Olympics was the highlight of Carl Kaufmann's career as an athlete. The thrilling end to the race ensured that the public never forgot him. The final was also proof that major sporting competitions can really bring the best out of our sportsmen and women.
From the 25th August to the 11th September the Olympic Stadium in Rome was the arena for the Olympics' main attraction: athletics. It was the age of cinder-tracks as the first Tartan track was not introduced in Europe until 1968 in Zurich. In the short-distance running-events there were other successful German runners such as Armin Hary who achieved the best time of 10.2 seconds in the100 metres and Jutta Heine who was second in the 200 metres behind the American Wilma Rudolph, both securing sprint titles. The 4 x100 m relay-runners, Cullmann, Hary, Mahlendorf and Lauer secured a gold medal. In the 5,000 and 10,000 metre races the East German, Hans Grodotzki, won silver. The German 4x400 metre relay-runners, Kaiser, Kinder, Reske and Kaufmann, achieved silver in 3.027 minutes behind the US.
