Arnoldo Devonish

Arnoldo Vicente Devonish Romero (born June 15, 1932 , † January 1, 1997 in Caracas ) was a Venezuelan athlete . He won the bronze medal in the triple jump in 1952 and is still the only Venezuelan to win an Olympic medal in athletics.

At the Olympic Games in Helsinki in 1952 , Devonish jumped 15.24 meters in qualifying and was second-best behind the Brazilian Adhemar Ferreira da Silva . In the final, Devonish jumped 15.04 meters in the first attempt and was thus in fifth place, in the second attempt Devonish climbed to 15.52 meters and took second place behind Ferreira da Silva. After that Devonish could not complete any more jumps because of an injury, but was only surpassed by Leonid Shcherbakov . With this, Devonish won the bronze medal, the first medal for Venezuela in the history of the Olympic Games.

At the Pan American Games in Mexico City in 1955 , Devonish jumped his personal best with 16.13 meters, finishing second behind Ferreira da Silva, who set a new world record with 16.56 meters. Because of a dispute with his association, Devonish could not compete in international competitions for several years. He celebrated his comeback in 1961 by winning the triple jump at the South American Championship, and in 1963 he was able to defend this title. Devonish retired after the 1963 Pan American Games.

Devonish's longest jump was 7.41 meters, which he jumped in 1953. With a height of 1.87 m, his competition weight was 70 kg.

literature

• Peter Matthews (Ed.): Athletics 1997 . Surbiton 1997 ISBN 1-899807-02-0 (Obituary: page 65)
• Ekkehard zur Megede: The Modern Olympic Century 1896-1996 Track and Field Athletics . Berlin 1999, published by the German Society for Athletics Documentation eV

Web links

• Arnoldo Devonish in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )