Alberto Juantorena

Alberto Juantorena
Alberto Juantorena on the way to a 2007 award ceremony
Full name	Alberto Juantorena Danger
nation	Cuba
birthday	21st November 1950 (age 69)
place of birth	Santiago de Cuba ,  Cuba
size	188 cm
Career
discipline	400 m , 800 m
Best performance	44.26 s ( 400 m ) 1: 43.44 min ( 800 m )
status	resigned
End of career	1984
Medal table
Olympic games 2 × 0 × 0 × Panamerica. Games 0 × 4 × 1 × Universiade 2 × 0 × 0 ×
Olympic games gold Montreal 1976 400 m gold Montreal 1976 800 m  Pan American Games silver Mexico City 1975 400 m silver Mexico City 1975 4 × 400 m silver San Juan 1979 400 m silver San Juan 1979 800 m bronze San Juan 1979 4 × 400 m  Universiade gold Moscow 1973 400 m gold Sofia 1977 800 m

Alberto Juantorena Danger (born November 21, 1950 in Santiago de Cuba / Cuba ) is a former Cuban athlete . He won Olympic gold over 400 and 800 meters in 1976 .

Life

Juantorena began his sports career as a basketball player and was convinced of his talent as a runner by the Polish athletics trainer Zygmunt Zabierzowski . After a year of running training, he took part in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich , but was eliminated in the semi-finals . His first international successes were the gold medal at the Universiade 1973 and the Pan American Games 1975 over 400 meters. At the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal , he started the 800 meters and won in a world record three days before he was also the winner of his specialty of 400 meters . In 1977 he repeated this historic double victory at the Athletics World Cup in Düsseldorf . With a height of 1.92 m and a weight of 84 kg, Juantorena was also the tallest and heaviest 800-meter Olympic champion to date. He was nicknamed El Caballo (the horse) because of his massive build and steady running style .

Juantorena continued his career until 1984, but was never able to achieve the level of performance of 1976/77 due to injury. He achieved 4th place at the Olympic Games in Moscow over the 400 meters and said goodbye to the friendship competitions , which were held in competition with the Olympic Games in Los Angeles boycotted by the Eastern Bloc , with a victory over 800 meters the competition stage.

Alberto Juantorena was then Vice Minister for Sports in Cuba in 1984. In 1986 he became Vice President of the Cuban Olympic Committee and Vice President of the Latin American UNESCO. He has been a member of the Government Committee for Physical Education and Sport since 1995 and was Technical Delegate at the 5th IAAF World Championships in Gothenburg in 1995 . Since 1997 Juantorena has served as Senior Vice President of the Cuba Olympic Committee.

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

Specialty

One of the most difficult achievements in athletics is to compete in the 400 and 800 meters. 400-meter runs are seen as sprints , while the 800 meters are considered to be medium-distance runs . Juantorena was one of the exceptional runners who contested both courses at the Olympic Games. At the 1976 Games in Montreal he was the first and so far (2016) only Olympic athlete to win gold in both 400 and 800 meters. At the Olympic Games, he ran the 800-meter course for the third time because his coach had to persuade him with some effort. However, he was appropriately prepared for it through targeted tempo runs over 600 meters.

Web links

• Juantorena's double Olympic victory on YouTube
• Alberto Juantorena in the Cuban state online encyclopedia EcuRed (Spanish)
• Alberto Juantorena on the official website of the Olympic Movement
• Juan Tallón: Juantorena, un pez gordo de la historia. In: Jot Down # 8/2012 (Spanish)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Council of the IAAF
2. ^ Alberto Juantorena to be inducted into the IAAF Hall of Fame. In: iaaf.org. Retrieved November 28, 2016 . 
3. ↑ Arnd Krüger : Many roads lead to Olympia. The changes in training systems for medium and long distance runners (1850–1997) . In: N. Gissel (Hrsg.): Sporting performance in change . Czwalina, Hamburg 1998, pp. 41-56; http://www.letsrun.com/2010/juantorena-coe-kipketer-rudisha-1120.php