The men's 800 metres at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, took place on 2 September 1972.

Yevhen Arzhanov won the Soviet Union's first medal in the event with silver, while Mike Boit kept Kenya on the podium for the third straight Games with bronze.

Still, few had expected Wottle, who had suffered tendinitis in his knees earlier that summer, to defeat Arzhanov, as the Soviet had not lost an 800 m final in four years; Wottle himself was so surprised at winning the race that he forgot to remove his golf cap when the U.S. national anthem was played at the medal ceremony.

When reporters later asked him if his failure to remove the cap, a good luck charm which he always wore while racing, was a protest against the Vietnam War, Wottle replied that he had merely forgotten and formally apologized to the American people.

[2] Algeria, Burma, the Republic of the Congo, Lebanon, Madagascar, Malawi, Nigeria, Panama, Romania, Somalia, Togo, and Zambia appeared in the event for the first time.