Athletics at the 2004 Summer Olympics – Women's 400 metres

The women's 400 metres at the 2004 Summer Olympics as part of the athletics program were held at the Athens Olympic Stadium from August 21 to 24.<ref name="SR">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The winning margin was 0.14 seconds.

The first round had split a full roster of runners into eight heats with the first three gaining a direct qualification and then the next six fastest across all heats advancing to the semifinals. The top two runners in each of the three semifinal heats moved on directly to the final, and they are immediately joined by the next two fastest from any of the semifinals.

Coming into the final, the fastest qualifiers were Monique Hennagan and Natalya Antyukh challenging each other in their semi final, Tonique Williams-Darling racing DeeDee Trotter in theirs, with world champion Ana Guevara cruising her semi final just staying ahead of Christine Amertil. In the final, Hennagan again went for the lead with Amertil and Natalya Nazarova each taking their shot at her in the first 200, only to fade after. Starting slightly slower, Williams came on strongly on the backstretch, marked by Guevara around the second turn. Coming off the turn Guevara had Williams where she wanted her, and Sanya Richards about even with Hennigan a couple of steps behind, with Antyukh and Trotter another step behind. Less than 50 meters from the finish, Guevara moved into the lead, but Williams kicked it into a different gear and pulled away to finish with gold.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> On the inside, Trotter rocketed past Richards and was gaining on Hennagan. Hennagan tried to fight, long striding with a slowing cadence to the finish, losing ground to a fast closing Antyukh. Defeated, Guevara gave up the fight and glided across the finish line with silver. 3 meters back, Antyukh clearly beat a wilting Hennagan, who still managed to hold off the fast closing Trotter. Template:TOC limit

Records

Template:As of, the existing World record, Olympic record, and world leading time were as follows.

No new records were set during the competition.

Qualification

The qualification period for athletics was 1 January 2003 to 9 August 2004. For the men's 400 metres, each National Olympic Committee was permitted to enter up to three athletes that had run the race in 51.50 seconds or faster during the qualification period. If an NOC had no athletes that qualified under that standard, one athlete that had run the race in 52.30 seconds or faster could be entered.

Schedule

All times are Eastern European Summer Time (UTC+3)

Date	Time	Round
Saturday, 21 August 2004	09:50	Round 1
Sunday, 22 August 2004	22:20	Semifinals
Tuesday, 24 August 2004	22:50	Final

Results

Round 1

Qualification rule: The first three finishers in each heat (Q) plus the next six fastest overall runners (q) advanced to the semifinals.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Heat 1

Rank	Lane	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1	8	Ana Guevara	Template:FlagIOC	50.93	Q
2	5	Lee McConnell	Template:FlagIOC	51.19	Q
3	4	Grażyna Prokopek	Template:FlagIOC	51.29	Q, PB
4	7	Fatou Bintou Fall	Template:FlagIOC	51.87	q
5	2	Hortense Bewouda	Template:FlagIOC	52.11
6	6	Oksana Luneva	Template:FlagIOC	52.94
7	3	Ruwida El-Hubti	Template:FlagIOC	1:03.57	NR

Heat 2

Rank	Lane	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1	4	Monique Hennagan	Template:FlagIOC	51.02	Q
2	8	Mariyana Dimitrova	Template:FlagIOC	51.29	Q
3	7	Kaltouma Nadjina	Template:FlagIOC	51.50	Q
4	3	Nadia Davy	Template:FlagIOC	52.04
5	2	Maria Laura Almirão	Template:FlagIOC	52.10
6	6	Kirsi Mykkänen	Template:FlagIOC	52.53
7	5	Bo Fanfang	Template:FlagIOC	56.01

Heat 3

Rank	Lane	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1	3	Natalya Nazarova	Template:FlagIOC	50.82	Q
2	7	Donna Fraser	Template:FlagIOC	51.19	Q
3	2	Hazel-Ann Regis	Template:FlagIOC	51.66	Q
4	5	Estie Wittstock	Template:FlagIOC	51.89	q
5	6	Amy Mbacké Thiam	Template:FlagIOC	52.44
6	8	Amantle Montsho	Template:FlagIOC	53.77	NR
7	4	Zamira Amirova	Template:FlagIOC	54.43

Heat 4

Rank	Lane	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1	7	Natalya Antyukh	Template:FlagIOC	50.54	Q
2	5	DeeDee Trotter	Template:FlagIOC	50.56	Q
3	6	Novlene Williams	Template:FlagIOC	50.59	Q, PB
4	3	Aliann Pompey	Template:FlagIOC	51.33	q
5	8	Egle Uljas	Template:FlagIOC	51.91	q, NR
6	2	Svetlana Bodritskaya	Template:FlagIOC	53.35
7	4	Shifana Ali	Template:FlagIOC	1:00.92	NR

Heat 5

Rank	Lane	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1	8	Tonique Williams-Darling	Template:FlagIOC	51.20	Q
2	5	Sviatlana Usovich	Template:FlagIOC	51.37	Q
3	3	Antonina Yefremova	Template:FlagIOC	51.53	Q
4	2	Mireille Nguimgo	Template:FlagIOC	51.90	q
5	4	Allison Beckford	Template:FlagIOC	52.85
6	7	Sandrine Thiébaud-Kangni	Template:FlagIOC	52.87
7	6	Damayanthi Dharsha	Template:FlagIOC	54.58

Heat 6

Rank	Lane	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1	2	Sanya Richards	Template:FlagIOC	50.11	Q
2	3	Christine Amertil	Template:FlagIOC	50.23	Q, PB
3	7	Christine Ohuruogu	Template:FlagIOC	50.50	Q, PB
4	8	Tiandra Ponteen	Template:FlagIOC	51.17	q
5	4	Geisa Coutinho	Template:FlagIOC	52.18
6	5	Makelesi Bulikiobo	Template:FlagIOC	53.58
7	6	Salamtou Hassane	Template:FlagIOC	1:03.28	NR

Semifinals

Qualification rule: The first two finishers in each heat (Q) plus the next two fastest overall runners (q) moved on to the final.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Semifinal 1

Rank	Lane	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1	4	Ana Guevara	Template:FlagIOC	50.15	Q
2	3	Christine Amertil	Template:FlagIOC	50.17	Q, PB
3	5	Sanya Richards	Template:FlagIOC	50.54	q
4	1	Christine Ohuruogu	Template:FlagIOC	51.00
5	2	Tiandra Ponteen	Template:FlagIOC	51.33
6	6	Sviatlana Usovich	Template:FlagIOC	51.42
7	7	Hazel-Ann Regis	Template:FlagIOC	51.47
8	8	Egle Uljas	Template:FlagIOC	53.13

Semifinal 2

Rank	Lane	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1	4	Tonique Williams-Darling	Template:FlagIOC	50.00	Q
2	5	DeeDee Trotter	Template:FlagIOC	50.14	Q, PB
3	3	Natalya Nazarova	Template:FlagIOC	50.63	q
4	1	Fatou Bintou Fall	Template:FlagIOC	51.21
5	8	Kaltouma Nadjina	Template:FlagIOC	51.57
6	2	Estie Wittstock	Template:FlagIOC	51.77
7	6	Donna Fraser	Template:FlagIOC	51.94
8	7	Grażyna Prokopek	Template:FlagIOC	51.96

Semifinal 3

Rank	Lane	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
1	5	Monique Hennagan	Template:FlagIOC	49.88	Q
2	4	Natalya Antyukh	Template:FlagIOC	50.04	Q
3	1	Novlene Williams	Template:FlagIOC	50.85
4	6	Mariyana Dimitrova	Template:FlagIOC	51.20	PB
5	7	Aliann Pompey	Template:FlagIOC	51.61
6	2	Antonina Yefremova	Template:FlagIOC	51.90
7	8	Mireille Nguimgo	Template:FlagIOC	52.21
8	3	Lee McConnell	Template:FlagIOC	52.63

Final

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Rank	Lane	Athlete	Nation	Time	Notes
Template:Gold01	4	Tonique Williams-Darling	Template:FlagIOC	49.42
Template:Silver02	3	Ana Guevara	Template:FlagIOC	49.56	SB
Template:Bronze03	6	Natalya Antyukh	Template:FlagIOC	49.89
4	5	Monique Hennagan	Template:FlagIOC	49.97
5	1	DeeDee Trotter	Template:FlagIOC	50.00	PB
6	2	Sanya Richards	Template:FlagIOC	50.19
7	8	Christine Amertil	Template:FlagIOC	50.37
8	7	Natalya Nazarova	Template:FlagIOC	50.65

External links

• IAAF Athens 2004 Olympic Coverage

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