Adolfo Consolini

Adolfo Consolini medal table
athletics
Italy
Olympic games
gold	1948 London	Discus throw
silver	1952 Helsinki	Discus throw

Adolfo Consolini (born January 5, 1917 in Costermano , Verona , † December 20, 1969 in Milan ) was an Italian athlete who was among the world's best in discus throwing in the 1940s and 1950s. The 1.80 m tall and 105 kg heavy athlete improved the world record three times and won a total of four gold and one silver medals at five European championships and four Olympic Games.

Career

Adolfo Consolini was the son of a farmer. After completing primary school, he worked in his parents' farm. He started athletics at the age of twelve. When he was participating in a stone throwing competition, the head of the local sports club noticed him. In order to promote the gifted boy, he got him a job as a handyman, which gave him enough time for systematic training. Adolfo Consolini's first official competition was the Italian Youth Championships in 1937, where he immediately won the title. Two years later, he won the first of a total of 15 national championship titles, having already achieved a remarkable fifth place at his first European championships in 1938.

The war did not interrupt his career. In the fall of 1941 he set a world record that lasted five years until he improved it himself in the first year after the war, making it the favorite for the European Championships in Oslo. There he won overwhelmingly with almost three meters ahead of the runner-up, his compatriot Giuseppe Tosi . Two years later, at the 1948 Olympic Games in London, the order was the same: Consolini won gold and Tosi silver. The two Italians had to do without their national anthem, however, as the record with the famous Mameli hymn ( l'Inno di Mameli ) had been lost.

In the 1950s, Adolfo Consolini was able to win two more European championship titles and Olympic silver. In 1960 in Rome, he took the Olympic oath . The now 43-year-old, who had recently become Italian champion, then took part in the competitions and placed himself honorable in seventeenth place - with a width that was just a few centimeters below his victory distance twelve years ago in London.

Services

Titles and placements

• European Championships 1938 in Paris : Fifth with 48.02 m (victory distance of the German Willy Schröder : 49.70 m)
• European Championships in Oslo in 1946 : GOLD with 53.23 m in front of his compatriot Giuseppe Tosi with 50.39 m and the Finn Veikko Nyqvist with 48.14 m
• XIV. Olympic Games 1948 in London : GOLD with 52.78 m in front of his compatriot Giuseppe Tosi with 51.78 m and the American Fortune Gordien with 50.77 m.
• European Championships 1950 in Brussels : GOLD with 53.75 m ahead of his compatriot Giuseppe Tosi with 52.31 m and the Finn Olavi Partanen with 48.69 m
• XV. Olympic Games 1952 in Helsinki : SILVER with 53.78 m behind Sim Iness with 55.03 m and in front of James Dillion with 53.28 m, both USA
• 1954 European Championships in Bern : GOLD with 53.44 m in front of his compatriot Giuseppe Tosi with 52.34 m and the Hungarian József Szécsényi with 51.88 m
• XVI. 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne : sixth with 52.21 m (victory distance of American Al Oerter : 56.36 m)
• European Championships 1958 in Stockholm : sixth with 53.05 m (victory distance of the Pole Edmund Piątkowski : 53.92 m)
• XVII. 1960 Olympic Games in Rome : seventeenth with 52.44 m (victory distance of the American Al Oerter : 59.18 m)

World records

• 53.34 m on October 26, 1941 in Milan
• 54.23 m on April 14, 1946 in Milan ( improved two months later by the American Bob Fitch )
• 55.33 m on October 10, 1948 in Milan ( improved the following year by the American Fortune Gordien )

literature

• Manfred Holzhausen: world records and world record holder. Shot put - discus throw . Grevenbroich 2000

Web links

• Adolfo Consolini in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )