Ato Boldon

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Ato Boldon at the 2000 Olympics
Ato Boldon medal table

sprint

Trinidad and TobagoTrinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago
Olympic games
bronze 1996 Atlanta 100 meters
bronze 1996 Atlanta 200 metres
silver 2000 Sydney 100 meters
bronze 2000 Sydney 200 metres
World championships
bronze 1995 Gothenburg 100 meters
gold 1997 Athens 200 metres
bronze 2001 Edmonton 100 meters
silver 2001 Edmonton 4 × 100 meters

Ato Jabari Boldon (born December 30, 1973 in Port of Spain ) is a former athlete from Trinidad and Tobago . He won four Olympic medals and was world champion over 200 meters in 1997 .

Life

Boldon has been one of the world's best sprinters over 100 and 200 meters since the mid-1990s . His specialty was the 200 meters. At the age of 14 he left the Caribbean island of Trinidad with his parents and has lived in the United States ever since . First he started with American football . There his sprinting talent was recognized and he started athletics training. As early as 1992, his home country sent him to the Olympic Games in Barcelona . He achieved his first international success in the same year when he became junior world champion in the 100 and 200 meters.

In the senior category, he won the bronze medal over 100 meters at the 1995 World Championships . Boldon became a member of the training group of the US coach John Smith , which increased his performance enormously. At the same time, Inger Miller and Maurice Greene , whose friend he soon became, also trained there . At the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta , he won bronze over 100 and also over 200 meters. In 1997 Boldon won the first world championship title in the history of the small Caribbean nation over 200 meters.

Boldon ran his best time over 100 meters (9.86 s) four times. In the year of the 1999 World Championships , however, he struggled with various injuries and could not reach his old form. At the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney he was back at the start and won silver over 100 and bronze over 200 meters.

In May 2001, Boldon tested positive for the stimulant ephedrine in the United States . He was only warned by the IAAF because it was his first offense. At the World Championships in August of the same year, he won bronze over 100 meters and silver with the 4 x 100 meter relay. The season ran in the cast Marc Burns , Ato Boldon, Jacey Harper , Darrel Brown national record.

At the 2003 World Championships , he was eliminated from both the individual and the relay in the semifinals. In 2004 Boldon played his fourth Olympic Games in Athens , but was eliminated over 100 meters in the heats. With the 4 x 100 meter relay Trinidad and Tobagos, however, he still reached the final and was seventh.

Then he ended his active career. With a height of 1.76 m, he had a competition weight of 75 kg. In the period after his resignation, Ato Boldon made his pilot's license and became a track and field commentator for an American TV station. From February 2006 to April 2007 he was a senator in Trinidad and Tobago.

The Ato Boldon Stadium on the island of Trinidad was named after him.

Personal bests

  • 100 m: 9.86 s, 1998
  • 200 m: 19.77 s, 1997

Web links

Commons : Ato Boldon  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Boldon tested positive for ephedrine. In: Berliner Zeitung . September 10, 2001, accessed September 11, 2015 .
  2. ^ Ato resigns as UNC senator , Trinidad and Tobago Newsday April 11, 2007
personal data
SURNAME Boldon, Ato
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Boldon, Ato Jabari (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Track and field athlete from Trinidad and Tobago
DATE OF BIRTH December 30, 1973
PLACE OF BIRTH Port of Spain , Trinidad