Fiona May

Fiona May
Fiona May (2011)
Full name	Fiona Marcia May
nation	United Kingdom of Italy
birthday	December 12, 1969
place of birth	Slough
size	181 cm
Weight	60 kg
Career
discipline	Long jump
Best performance	7.11 m
status	resigned
Medal table
Olympic games 0 × 2 × 0 × World championships 2 × 1 × 1 × European championships 0 × 1 × 1 × Indoor World Cup 1 × 0 × 0 × Indoor European Championships 1 × 0 × 0 × Commonwealth Games 0 × 0 × 1 ×
Olympic games silver Atlanta 1996 Long jump silver Sydney 2000 Long jump  World championships gold Gothenburg 1995 Long jump bronze Athens 1997 Long jump silver Seville 1999 Long jump gold Edmonton 2001 Long jump European championships bronze Helsinki 1994 Long jump silver Budapest 1998 Long jump  Indoor world championships gold Paris 1997 Long jump European Indoor Championships gold Valencia 1998 Long jump  Commonwealth Games bronze Auckland 1990 Long jump

Fiona Marcia May (born December 12, 1969 in Slough ) is a former Italian long jumper of British origin. She was twice world champion and twice Olympic runner-up.

Career

May, whose parents emigrated from Jamaica to Great Britain, jumped 6.30 m at the age of 14. In 1986 she finished eighth at the Junior World Championships . In 1987 the European Junior Championships took place in Birmingham , May won with 6.64 m with a tailwind of 2.9 m / s, but in 1988 she was Junior World Champion in Canada with 6.88 m and 2.1 m / s tailwind. At the Olympic Games in Seoul May surprised with the 6th place in 6.62 m. At the beginning of 1990 at the Commonwealth Games in Auckland, she jumped 6.55 m and received the bronze medal behind the Australian Jane Flemming and Beatrice Utondu from Nigeria. In summer May finished seventh with 6.77 m at the European Championships in Split . 1991 May could not qualify as 19th in the qualification for the final at the World Championships in Tokyo. A month earlier she had taken second place behind Inessa Krawez from the Soviet Union at the Universiade in Sheffield with 6.67 m . At the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona she was eliminated without a valid attempt in qualification. At the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart , she did not reach the final as 14th in the qualification. Until 1993 May competed under the flag of her country of birth. Through her marriage to the Italian pole vaulter Gianni Iapichino and her move to Tuscany , she received Italian citizenship and competed for Italy from 1994.

In 1994 May won her first Italian championship title, followed by the second title in 1996. At the European Championships in Helsinki in 1994 she won bronze with 6.90 m behind the German Heike Drechsler and the Ukrainian Inessa Krawez. In 1995 at the World Championships in Gothenburg she won the title with 6.98 m at 4.3 m / s tailwind. In her first Olympic start for Italy in 1996 in Atlanta , she managed the longest jump in qualification with 6.85 m. In the final, Chiuma Ajunwa from Nigeria won with 7.12 m ahead of Fiona May with 7.02 m and Jackie Joyner-Kersee from the United States with 7.00 m. Fiona May was the first Italian woman to win an Olympic medal in the long jump. It was also the first 7-meter jump of her career in regular wind conditions.

At the beginning of 1997 May first appeared at the World Indoor Championships . With 6.86 m she won ahead of Chioma Ajunwa. In the summer at the World Championships in Athens , she jumped 6.91 m and received the bronze medal behind the Russian Lyudmila Galkina and the Greek Niki Xanthou . At the beginning of 1998 Fiona May won the European Indoor Championships in Valencia with a lead of 6.91 m and 19 centimeters. In the open air season she also competed in the triple jump for the first time and improved the Italian national record in her first competition, two further record improvements followed in the same year. At the European Championships in Budapest , however, she competed in the long jump as usual. Heike Drechsler won with 7.16 m ahead of Fiona May with 7.11 m and Ljudmila Galkina with 7.06 m. Fiona May's jump of 7.11 m with 0.8 m / s tail wind was still the Italian national record twenty years later. In 1999 at the World Championships in Seville , the Spaniard Niurka Montalvo won with 7.06 m before May with 6.94 m. At the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000 , Heike Drechsler won with 6.99 m ahead of May with 6.92 m and Russian Tatyana Kotowa with 6.83 m.

At the beginning of 2001 May jumped 6.87 m at the World Indoor Championships in Lisbon and finished fourth, one centimeter behind third-placed Niurka Montalvo. In the summer of the 2001 World Championships in Edmonton , May jumped 7.02 m with a tailwind of 2.6 m / s and won the title with one centimeter ahead of Tatiana Kotowa. Two years later, she finished ninth at the 2003 World Championships with 6.46 m . At the World Indoor Championships 2004 in Budapest May achieved sixth place with 6.64 m. At her fifth Olympic start in Athens in 2004 , she was eliminated with 6.38 m in qualification. In 2005 May won her third Italian outdoor championship. At the end of her career, she won the title at the Mediterranean Games 2005 in Almería with 6.64 m .

May ended her career in 2005. She is a mother of two and works as a TV commentator for major athletics events. May graduated from Leeds University with a degree in Economics .

Personal best

• Long jump 7.11 m (August 22, 1998 in Budapest)
• Triple jump 14.65 m (June 27, 1998 in Saint Petersburg)

Awards

• Italy's Sportswoman of the Year ( La Gazzetta dello Sport ): 1995

literature

• Peter Matthews (Ed.): Athletics 2005. THe International Track and Field Annual. SportsBooks, Cheltenham 2005 ISBN 1-899807-27-6 pp. 185f

Web links

• Fiona May in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Fiona May in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Footnotes

1. ↑ Universiade 1991 at gbrathletics.com (accessed on August 21, 2019)
2. ^ Winfried Kramer et al .: National Athletics Records for all Countries in the world. Neunkirchen 2018, p. 121