Aaron O'Neill
Research lead for society, economy, and politics: Europe & global
Get in touch with us nowMedal count by country in the Women's 1,500m at the Summer Olympics 1972-2020
The Women's 1,500 meter event was introduced to the Summer Olympics in the 1968 games in Mexico City. Since then, Soviet athletes saw the most success in this event, winning three golds and seven overall medals (Romanian athletes have also won seven total medals, but only one of these was gold). The Soviet Union's Tatyana Kazankina, and 2020 champion Faith Kipyegon of Kenya are the only athletes to have won two golds in this event.
The 2012 gold and silver medals were originally won by Turkish runners Aslı Çakır Alptekin and Gamze Bulut, but both athletes were stripped of their medals due to doping offences in 2015 and 2017 respectively; the gold medal was redistributed to Maryam Yusuf Jamal of Bahrain (originally from Kenya) in 2017, and the other medals were then reallocated in 2018. The 2012 event is known as one of the "dirtiest races in Olympic history" as six of the top nine original finishers were found to have used performance enhancing drugs at some point in their career.
The 2012 gold and silver medals were originally won by Turkish runners Aslı Çakır Alptekin and Gamze Bulut, but both athletes were stripped of their medals due to doping offences in 2015 and 2017 respectively; the gold medal was redistributed to Maryam Yusuf Jamal of Bahrain (originally from Kenya) in 2017, and the other medals were then reallocated in 2018. The 2012 event is known as one of the "dirtiest races in Olympic history" as six of the top nine original finishers were found to have used performance enhancing drugs at some point in their career.
