Athletics at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Men's 100 metres

This was the seventeenth time the event was held, having appeared at every Olympics since the first in 1896. Two finalists from 1968 returned: Lennox Miller of Jamaica and Jean-Louis Ravelomanantsoa of Madagascar. The favorite was Soviet Valeriy Borzov, the European champion. The American team was missing John Carlos, who had turned to professional football, but still had strong runners in Eddie Hart and Rey Robinson, who had matched the world record of 9.9 seconds in the U.S. Olympic trials, and Robert Taylor.[2]

Thirteen nations appeared in the event for the first time: Bolivia, Cambodia, Chad, Kuwait, Lesotho, Malawi, Mongolia, Paraguay, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Upper Volta, the Virgin Islands, and Zambia (though Northern Rhodesia had competed previously). The United States was the only nation to have appeared at each of the first seventeen Olympic men's 100 metres events.

The event retained the same basic four round format introduced in 1920: heats, quarterfinals, semifinals, and a final. It also expanded the "fastest loser" system, introduced in 1968, to include the quarterfinals as well as the preliminary heats.

The first round consisted of 12 heats, each with 6–8 athletes. The top three runners in each heat advanced, along with the next four fastest runners overall. This made 40 quarterfinalists, who were divided into five heats of 8 runners. The top three runners in each quarterfinal advanced, along with the single fastest fourth-place finisher. The 16 semifinalists competed in two heats of 8, with the top four in each semifinal advancing to the eight-man final.[2][3]

Prior to the competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.

World record	9.9	Jim Hines	Sacramento, United States	20 June 1968
	9.9	Ronnie Ray Smith	Sacramento, United States	20 June 1968
	9.9	Charles Greene	Sacramento, United States	20 June 1968
	9.9	Jim Hines	Mexico City, Mexico	14 October 1968
	9.9	Eddie Hart	Eugene, United States	1 July 1972
	9.9	Rey Robinson	Eugene, United States	1 July 1972
Olympic record	9.9	Jim Hines	Mexico City, Mexico	14 October 1968

No records were set in the event at the 1972 Games.

3. Die Spiele, The official report of the Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXth Olympiad Munich 1972, Volume 3 The competitions, page 49.