Félix Sánchez

Félix Sánchez
Félix Sánchez at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin
nation	Dominican Republic
birthday	August 30, 1977
place of birth	New York ,  USA
size	178 cm
Weight	73 kg
Career
discipline	400 m hurdles , 4 × 400 m
Best performance	47.25 s (400 m hurdles)
society	USC Trojans
status	active
Medal table
Olympic games 2 × 0 × 0 × World championships 2 × 1 × 0 × Pan American Games 1 × 1 × 3 ×
Olympic games gold Athens 2004 400 m hurdles gold London 2012 400 m hurdles World championships gold Edmonton 2001 400 m hurdles gold Paris 2003 400 m hurdles silver Osaka 2007 400 m hurdles  Pan American Games gold Santo Domingo 2003 400 m hurdles bronze Santo Domingo 2003 4 × 400 m bronze Rio de Janeiro 2007 4 × 400 m silver Guadalajara 2011 4 × 400 m bronze Guadalajara 2011 400 m hurdles
last change: August 11, 2012

Félix Sánchez (born August 30, 1977 in New York City ) is a former Dominican hurdler .

The son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic to the United States, he started out with baseball as a teenager , but joined athletics after an injury . He has only started over 400 meter hurdles for the Dominican Republic since 1999 , as he saw no chance for himself to get into the US team. So he was able to take part in the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney , but he did not get over the semi-finals in the 400 meter hurdles.

Only in the post-Olympic season did his star rise as one of the world's best hurdlers. At the 2001 World Championships in Edmonton , the psychology student won his first gold medal. He achieved his personal best when he won the title at the 2003 World Championships in Paris / Saint-Denis with 47.25 seconds, one of the best times that has ever been run.

Sánchez only experienced defeats on the 400-meter flat course, he remained unbeaten over the hurdles for years, and so the Olympic gold medal at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens was firmly planned. Nobody could seriously endanger him, and so he became a sovereign Olympic champion. Its superiority over the competition was comparable to the great American hurdler of the 1970s and 1980s, Edwin Moses .

From winning the first world title, he wore a battery-operated red bracelet that blinked during the race. Immediately before the start, Sánchez switched on the flashing. With the bracelet he won 43 runs in series between 2001 and 2004, most recently the Olympic race in Athens. He then decided to run without a bracelet and promptly lost his first race in more than three years as part of the Golden League in Brussels on September 3, 2004 .

The post-Olympic season 2005 was marked by injuries, and Sánchez was therefore unable to maintain the level of performance of the last few years. At the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki he fought his way to the finals, but after a few meters he suffered a muscle injury in his right leg and had to give up the race. He also had to have an operation on his right foot because of calcium deposits.

On July 26, 2006, Sanchez made his comeback at the Central American and Caribbean Games in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia . He contested his first race in Europe after about a year on August 18, 2006 in Zurich (49.72 s, 8th place). At the 2007 World Championships in Osaka , he showed almost old class again and won silver in 48.01 s. At the Olympic Games in London in 2012 , Sánchez was able to repeat his success from 2004 and became Olympic champion in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 47.63 s.

With a height of 1.78 m, he has a competition weight of 73 kg.

Personal bests

• 100 m: 10.45 s
• 200 m: 20.87 s
• 400 m: 44.90 s
• 800 m: 1: 48.99 min
• 400 m hurdles: 47.25 s

Web links

• Félix Sánchez in the database of World Athletics (English)