Bob Tisdall

Bob Tisdall (actually Robert Morton Newburgh Tisdall ; born May 16, 1907 in Nuwara Eliya , Ceylon , † July 28, 2004 in Nambour , Queensland , Australia ) was a versatile track and field athlete who became an Olympic champion for Ireland . With a height of 1.86 m, he had a competition weight of 74 kg.

Bob Tisdall

Life

Until 1932

Bob Tisdall grew up in Nenagh , County Tipperary, to Anglo-Irish parents. He studied at Cambridge and won in 1931 in a match against Oxford over 440 yards, over 120 yard hurdles, in the long jump and in the shot put.

In 1932 he applied for a place on the Irish Olympic team. After setting an Irish record over 440 yard hurdles with 54.2 seconds, he was nominated for the Olympic Games in Los Angeles . There he competed in the 400-meter hurdles and in the decathlon .

Olympic Games 1932

On July 31, 1932, Tisdall won his first run over the 400 meter hurdles in 54.8 seconds and on the same day also the semi-finals in 52.8 seconds. The final took place on August 1, 1932. In the field were the 1924 Olympic champion Morgan Taylor from the United States, who also held the world record with 52.0 seconds, and the British 1928 Olympic champion Lord Burghley .

The result was:

1. Bob Tisdall, Ireland, 51.7 seconds
2. Glenn Hardin , USA, 51.9 seconds
3. Morgan Taylor, USA, 52.0 seconds
4. Lord Burghley, Great Britain, 52.2 seconds

Tisdall was thus Olympic champion. Because he had broken the last hurdle, his time was not recognized as a world record. Hardin's time was rounded to 52.0 seconds and recognized as the setting of the world record.

About an hour after the final in the 400 meter hurdles, Pat O'Callaghan won the hammer throw, making August 1, 1932 the most successful day in the history of Irish athletics. Five days after the hurdle final, Tisdall was eighth in the Olympic decathlon final with 7327.170 points.

Glenn Hardin won Olympic gold in the 400-meter hurdles four years later, so that in retrospect the final of 1932 shows the curiosity that four Olympic champions of the same discipline were placed in the first four places.

After 1932

In 1934 Tisdall emigrated to South Africa and worked there as a teacher. During World War II he served in a South African Irish regiment, where he rose to major. Tisdall later lived in Kenya, Rhodesia, Tanzania and Ireland. In 1969 he moved to South Australia with his wife Peggy and settled there as a farmer. In 2000 Tisdall took part in the Olympic torch relay . In 2004, Tisdall, who was the oldest living athletics Olympic champion in an individual competition at the time, died.

literature

• Peter Matthews (Ed.): Athletics 2005. SportsBooks, Cheltenham 2005, ISBN 1899807-27-6 (contains an obituary).
• Ekkehard zur Megede: The Modern Olympic Century 1896-1996 Track and Field Athletics. German Society for Athletics Documentation eV, Neuss 1999.

Web links

• Bob Tisdall in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )