Aries Merritt

Aries Merritt
Aries Merritt 2012
nation	United States
birthday	July 24, 1985
place of birth	Chicago
size	185 cm
Career
discipline	110 m hurdles , 60 m hurdles
status	active
Medal table
Olympic games 1 × 0 × 0 × World championships 0 × 0 × 1 × Indoor World Cup 1 × 0 × 0 × Junior World Championship 1 × 0 × 0 ×
Olympic games gold 2012 London 12.92 s  World championships bronze 2015 Beijing 13.04 s  Junior World Championships gold 2004 Grosseto 13.56 s  Indoor world championships gold 2012 Istanbul 7.44 s
last change: August 29, 2015

Aries Merritt (born July 24, 1985 in Chicago ) is an American hurdler who specializes in the 110-meter distance . In 2012 he became Olympic champion and set a new world record with 12.80 seconds .

Life

Merritt won the gold medal at the 2004 Junior World Championships in Grosseto . In 2006, starting for the University of Tennessee , he became NCAA champion in 13.21 seconds . At the 2009 World Championships in Berlin , he was eliminated in advance. Two years later he finished sixth at the 2011 World Championships in Daegu with 13.67 s and was fifth after the disqualification of Dayron Robles .

Aries Merritt at the 2012 World Indoor Championships

In 2012, Merritt made the switch from eight to seven steps before the first hurdle in the winter. The new tactic was successful, he won the US Indoor Championships and the World Indoor Championships in Istanbul over 60 meter hurdles. At the 2012 Olympic Games in London , he won the gold medal over 110 meters and set his personal best with 12.92 seconds, just five hundredths of a second above the world record . He broke this on September 7th at the Memorial Van Damme in Brussels in 12.80 seconds and thus secured the overall victory in the Diamond League, endowed with 40,000 US dollars . Before the world record he had completed six runs in under 13 seconds since the end of June.

During the 2013 indoor season, Merritt suffered from thigh pain, which is why he decided in late January not to play any more indoor competitions. At his first big outdoor meeting of the season, in Shanghai , he was so handicapped that he broke off the run. With a view to the World Championships in Moscow and the hoped-for qualification at the US Championships in June, he wanted to start training again as early as possible, but this was not possible until June 14th, a week before the US trials was possible. There he managed to qualify for the World Championships in third with 13.23 s. Starting with Birmingham, he completed three more competitions before the World Championships, all of which he won: In Birmingham with 13.23 s, in Paris with 13.09 s and finally in London with 13.14 s. At the World Championships, as expected, he made it to the final, where he had to admit defeat to the stronger competition and was sixth with 13.31 s.

In October 2013, Merritt was diagnosed with kidney failure caused by a rare genetic defect . This had been identified by a virus attack, whereby the efficiency of the kidneys fell to 15 percent. Merritt spent in hospital until April 2014. After six weeks of preparation, he competed again in May and increased to 13.27 seconds over the course of the season. At the US Trials in June 2015, he qualified third for the World Championships in Beijing . There he won the bronze medal on August 28, 2015 in 13.04 seconds. A few days later, on September 1, Merritt had a successful kidney transplant .

Personal bests

• 50m hurdles (indoor): 6.54s, January 28, 2012, New York City
• 60 m hurdles (indoor): 7.43 s, February 26, 2012, Albuquerque
• 110 m hurdles: 12.80 s (WR), 7 September 2012, Brussels

Web links

Commons : Aries Merritt  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Aries Merritt in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Aries Merritt in the database of World Athletics (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ IAAF: Event Report - Men's 60 Meters Hurdles - Final . March 11, 2012
2. ↑ Men's 110m Hurdles. london2012.com, accessed August 8, 2012 .  
3. ^ IAAF: Aries Merritt talks about his battle to book his ticket to Moscow June 29, 2013
4. ↑ Reinhard Sogl: World record holder with renal insufficiency Frankfurter Rundschau, August 25, 2015, accessed on August 31, 2015.
5. ↑ Aries Merritt successfully undergoes kidney transplant Sports Illustrated, September 2, 2015, accessed September 4, 2015.