Donald Thomas (athlete)

Donald Thomas
Donald Thomas in Kanagawa 2009
nation	Bahamas
birthday	1st July 1984 (age 36)
place of birth	Freeport , Bahamas
size	191 cm
Weight	81 kg
Career
discipline	high jump
Best performance	2.37 m
status	active
Medal table
World championships 1 × 0 × 0 × Commonwealth Games 1 × 0 × 0 × Pan American Games 1 × 1 × 1 ×
World championships gold Osaka 2007 2.35 m  Commonwealth Games gold New Delhi 2010 2.32 m  Pan American Games silver Rio de Janeiro 2007 2.30 m gold Guadalajara 2011 2.32 m bronze Toronto 2015 2.28 m
last change: July 25, 2018

Donald Thomas celebrates his victory at the 2007 World Championships

Thomas' unusual jumping style

Donald Thomas (born July 1, 1984 in Freeport ) is a track and field athlete from the Bahamas . He became world champion in high jump in 2007 .

Beginnings

As a student at Lindenwood University , Missouri , Thomas played basketball. Because of his enormous jumping ability, an athletics coach asked him to try the high jump. After jumping 2.20 meters straight away, he started systematic training.

International success

Donald Thomas made his first international appearance at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne , where he jumped a personal best with 2.23 m and thus finished fourth. He then won the silver medal at the U23 NACAC championships in Santo Domingo with 2.21 m. At the Central America and Caribbean Games in Cali , he crossed 2.13 m and reached fourth place. In 2007 he won the silver medal behind Cuban Víctor Moya at the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro with 2.30 m . During the season he rose to 2.35 m and qualified for the World Championships in Osaka as the best of the year's best list; only the Swede Stefan Holm had also crossed 2.35 meters in the 2007 outdoor season. In the Osaka final, five jumpers tried their hand at 2.35 meters. Stefan Holm and the Russian Jaroslaw Rybakow were in the lead without fail. Kyriakos Ioannou had mastered 2.33 meters in the second attempt, Thomas in the third attempt. Also still in the competition was the Briton Martyn Bernard , who skipped all heights after jumping 2.21 meters in the third attempt. Thomas crossed 2.35 meters in the first attempt, Rybakow and Ioannou in the second attempt, Holm and Bernard were eliminated. All three jumpers and Thomas failed at 2.37 meters, making them world champions and thus the second high jump world champion after Troy Kemp in 1995.

In 2008 he qualified for the first time for the Olympic Games in Beijing , where he was eliminated with 2.20 m in qualification , as well as at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin . In 2010 he took part in the World Indoor Championships in Doha , where he was eliminated in the preliminary round with 2.18 m. During the outdoor season he won the gold medals with 2.28 m at the Central American and Caribbean Games in Mayagüez and at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi , where he prevailed with 2.32 m against his compatriot Trevor Barry . At the World Championships in Daegu Thomas reached the final. As third in group B he qualified with 2.31 m. In the final he failed because of the second altitude. With 2.20 m, Thomas was eleventh. At the end of the season he won the gold medal at the Pan American Games in Guadalajara with 2.32 m.

In 2012 he again took part in the World Indoor Championships in Istanbul , but again this time with 2.22 m he did not qualify for the finals, as did the Olympic Games in London , where he only crossed the starting height of 2.16 m in qualifying . In 2013 he did not succeed in the CAC championships in Morelia . However, he finished sixth at the World Championships in Moscow with 2.32 m. He also failed at the 2014 Indoor World Championships in Sopot , Poland , due to the qualifying starting height of 2.16 m. Later he finished ninth at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow with 2.21 m. In 2015 he won the bronze medal at the Pan American Games in Toronto with a 2.28 m jump. He then took part in the World Championships in Beijing, where he finished sixth with 2.29 m in the final .

In 2016 he was tenth at the World Indoor Championships in Portland and reached seventh place in the final of his third Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro with a height of 2.29 m . In 2017 he took part in the World Championships in London, where he was eliminated with 2.22 m in qualification . In 2018 he finished sixth at the World Indoor Championships in Birmingham with 2.20 m and fourth at the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast , Australia , with 2.27 m.

In 2007, 2010, 2016 and 2018, Thomas became Bahamian high jump champion.

technology

In the early days of his high jump career, Thomas used a rather unconventional jumping technique. A lanky run-up combined with a take-off point that was much too close and a strongly bent left take-off leg was completed with a kicking leg movement when jumping over the bar. Measurements showed that his jump point at this time was only about 70 cm in front of the bar, which is significantly shorter at 110 cm compared to the Swedish Olympic champion in 2004, Stefan Holm . Exploiting the effects of an impulse curve, such as that which occurs on the Fosbury flop , was almost impossible with Thomas. You could say he could have jumped over the bar with the same results while standing.

Physiological research has shown that Thomas' enormous jumping potential comes from an unusually long Achilles tendon and strong leg muscles. A high jumper, on the other hand, who is well versed in technology, creates his height, in addition to making the technique more precise, through a trained hardening of the Achilles tendon. As with a mechanical spring (helical compression spring), the hardening leads to faster and more precise return of the energy used during start-up and thus the amount.

The half-hearted application of the best possible technique in Thomas' high jump starts can also be traced back to the lack of motivation at the time. His hopes for entry into the American basketball league NBA were high. Only the change in attitude in his sporting orientation was able to introduce him to a meticulous development of the jumping technique.

Web links

Commons : Donald Thomas  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Donald Thomas in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Donald Thomas in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• The unusual jumping technique of Thomas in the video