Chris Brasher

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Brasher on a 1957 stamp of the Dominican Republic

Christopher William "Chris" Brasher (born August 21, 1928 in Georgetown (Guyana) , † February 28, 2003 in Chaddleworth , Berkshire ) was a British athlete and Olympic champion in 1956 in the 3000 meter steeplechase .

biography

Brasher was born in Georgetown, the capital of the then to the United Kingdom belonging Guyana ( British Guiana ). He grew up in Jerusalem , where his father worked in the colonial service. The geology student at St John's College in Cambridge was the pacemaker for Roger Bannister on May 6, 1954 in Oxford , when he was the first person ever to need less than four minutes for a mile.

Two years later, at the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956 , Brasher surprisingly won the 3,000-meter obstacle course in a time of 8: 41.2 minutes. Brasher was initially disqualified for allegedly obstructing Norwegian Ernst Larsen . After Larsen declared that he did not feel disabled, Chris Brasher was confirmed as an Olympic champion . At the Olympic Games in Helsinki in 1952 , Chris Brasher was far behind and finished eleventh in the 3000 meter obstacle course (9: 14.0 min).

After graduating, he worked as a journalist . He was a well-respected sports reporter for The Observer newspaper and the BBC television network, and a co-founder of the London Marathon , which first started in 1981. For his services, Brasher was named a CBE in 1996. After months of illness, he died at the age of 74.

Chris Brasher was married to tennis player and 1959 French Open winner Shirley Bloomer .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Arnd Krüger : The classification of Roger Bannister's performance in the history of training for medium and long distances. In: J. Buschmann, S. Wassong (Hrsg.): Cross-country skiing through the Olympic history. Festschrift for Karl Lennartz. Carl and Liselott Diem - Archive, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-88338-015-6 , pp. 349–372.
  2. ^ John Bryant: The London Marathon: The history of the greatest race on earth. London: Arrow, 2006.
  3. Chris Brasher. In: theguardian.com. March 1, 2003, accessed May 11, 2018 .