Alexander Dale Oen

Alexander Dale Oen
Alexander Dale Oen on January 18, 2009 at the Reykjavík International Games
Personal information
Surname:	Alexander Dale Oen
Nation:	Norway
Swimming style (s) :	chest
Society:	Vestkantsvømmerne
Birthday:	May 21, 1985
Place of birth:	Øygarden , Norway
Date of death:	April 30, 2012
Place of death:	Flagstaff , Arizona , USA
Size:	1.90 m
Weight:	80 kg
Medal table

Alexander Dale Oen [ɑlɛk'sɑndər 'dɑ: lə' u: ən] (born May 21, 1985 in Øygarden , Norway , † April 30, 2012 in Flagstaff , Arizona , USA ) was a Norwegian swimmer . His main stretches were 50 and 100 meters chest . In 2011 he became world champion over 100 meters.

Career

Alexander Dale Oen trained under Stig Leganger-Hansen at Club Vestkantsvømmerne in the western Norwegian province of Hordaland . At the age of 16 he moved to Laksevåg (district of Bergen ) in order to be able to arrange training and attendance at the grammar school better than in his home town of Øygarden. His international breakthrough came at the 2003 World Swimming Championships in Barcelona . There he swam over 100 meters chest for the first time into the final and finished seventh. At the 2005 World Championships in Montreal , he was able to repeat this placement again. The next year he had his first very big success. At the 2006 World Short Course Championships in Shanghai , he won the bronze medal over the same distance. This made him the first male swimmer to win a medal at world championships for Norway. In the same year he also won a silver medal at the 2006 European Championships in Budapest .

Two years later at the European Championships in Eindhoven in 2008 , he became the most successful breaststroke swimmer of these competitions when he won gold over the 100 meters and silver over the 50 and 200 meters breasts. In addition, when he won the gold medal from Roman Sludnow, he took the almost seven-year-old 100-meter breastplate European record. At the Summer Olympics in Beijing , he achieved silver in the breaststroke over 100 meters.

Oen's greatest success was winning the gold medal over 100 meters breaststroke at the 2011 World Championships in Shanghai , which made him the first Norwegian title holder at the World Swimming Championships. He dedicated the title to the victims of the attacks in Norway . A little later he won two medals at the European Short Course Championships 2011 in Szczecin (gold over 100 meters chest, bronze over 50 meters chest). In the same year Alexander Dale Oen received the Aftenposten gold medal for his sporting success and was voted Norway's Sportsman of the Year and European Swimmer of the Year .

Oen died of a heart attack due to coronary artery disease on April 30, 2012 during an altitude training camp for the Norwegian Swimming Federation in Arizona , where he was preparing for the London Summer Olympics .

Three weeks after his death, at the opening of the European Championships in Debrecen , a short film commemorated Alexander Dale Oen, who would have celebrated his 27th birthday that day.

Web links

• "Merker at det blir lettere å vinne for hver gang" - portrait of Mette Bugge at aftenposten.no, December 24, 2011 (Norwegian)
• Alexander Dale Oen in the Swimrankings.net database (English)
• Alexander Dale Oen in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Swimming world champion Dale Oen has died , Spiegel Online from May 1, 2012. Retrieved on May 1, 2012.
2. ↑ Mourning for Norway's Alexander Dale Oen Tagesspiegel .de of May 2, 2012 (accessed on July 28, 2012)
3. ↑ AP: Heart Disease Blamed in Death of Norwegian Swimmer . In: The New York Times . , June 12, 2012.
4. ↑ EM-arrangøren hyller Dale Oen med video , in: Aftenposten , accessed on March 13, 2020