Al Oerter

Al Oerter
Al Oerter in Rome (1960)
Full name	Alfred Adolf Oerter jr.
nation	United States
birthday	September 19, 1936
place of birth	New York City
size	192 cm
Weight	125 kg
date of death	October 1, 2007
Place of death	Fort Myers
Career
discipline	Discus throw
Best performance	69.46 m
society	New York Athletic Club
Medal table
Olympic games 4 × 0 × 0 × Pan American Games 4 × 0 × 0 ×
Olympic games gold Melbourne 1956 Discus throw gold Rome 1960 Discus throw gold Tokyo 1964 Discus throw gold Mexico City 1968 Discus throw  Pan American Games gold Chicago 1959 Discus throw

Alfred Adolf "Al" Oerter, Jr (born September 19, 1936 in Astoria , Queens , New York City , † October 1, 2007 in Fort Myers , Florida ) was an American athlete . As the only athlete in the history of the Olympic Games , he won four gold medals in the discus throw .

Life

Al Oerter, the son of a Czech woman and a German shot putter, began his career as an athlete in 1954 at the University of Kansas. During his active sports career, he was 1.92 meters tall and 136 kilograms.

His Olympic career began in Melbourne at the 1956 Olympic Games . He was not considered a favorite, but won the competition with a 56.36 m throw. At the Olympic Games in Rome in 1960 , he won with 59.18 meters and beat the world record holder Rink Babka from the USA , who won the silver medal. In 1962 he set the world record for the first time , but was soon replaced as world record holder by Ludvík Daněk . Nevertheless, Oerter was the declared favorite for the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 1964. Despite a neck injury and the fact that he could not do his last throw because of pain, he won his third gold medal there with a width of 61.00 m.

At the Olympic Games in Mexico City in 1968 , he set another Olympic record (64.78 m) at the age of 32, making him the first track and field athlete to win gold in four consecutive Olympic Games, although he was never a world record holder at the Olympic Games drove. Then he retired from competitive sports. In 1980, at the age of 44, he made another comeback attempt to qualify for the Olympic Games in Moscow , but failed to qualify fourth. In addition , the USA boycotted the games in the Soviet Union , which would have made his participation impossible anyway. In 1984, the now 48-year-old tried to take part in the Los Angeles Games, but had to give up due to an injury. In 1986 he finally resigned.

The greatest distance ever achieved by Oerter was 74.67 m and would have been a world record at the time of his death; however, this distance was achieved during filming and was therefore not officially recognized. The former GDR athlete Jürgen Schult has held the world record since 1986 with 74.08 m. Oerter threw the two-kilogram discus four times at official world record lengths; he achieved his best competition distance as a 43-year-old with 69.46 m.

After his sports career, Oerter worked as a systems analyst and computer engineer. He also devoted himself to painting. His works can be seen in a permanent exhibition in the "Art of the Olympians" museum in Fort Myers, which he founded in 2006 . In 2000 he contracted a cardiovascular disease and on March 13, 2003 was already considered "clinically dead". In 2007, at the age of 71, he died of heart failure in a hospital near his home in Fort Myers, Florida.

In 2012 he was inducted into the IAAF Hall of Fame .

Quotes

• “When I won the first Olympic gold, I was really young, the second I was unable to do anything, the third I was seriously injured and the fourth I was old,” said Oerter of his Olympic series. (Before Rome, Oerter had barely survived a car accident, in Tokyo he was handicapped by a rib injury.)
• “When it comes hand to hand, world records are not worth a penny. The wind made it anyway, ”explained Oerter, who won all gold medals directly in duels with the current world record holders.
• "I had a great life and I want to end it the way it is," he said, declining a doctor-recommended heart transplant.
• "Al was a gentle giant, bigger than life," said his second wife, Cathy.

Web links

• Website on the topic of Al Oerter
• Al Oerter in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Al Oerter in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Olympic discus champion Al Oerter has died in old age. (No longer available online.) In: Financial Times . October 1, 2007 formerly in the original .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  
• Frank Litsky: Al Oerter, Olympic Discus Champion, Is Dead at 71. In: New York Times . October 1, 2007 (English).