Frank Verner

athletics
silver	1904	1500 meters
silver	1904	4 mile team run

Frank Verner (actually William Franklyn Verner ; born June 24, 1883 in Grundy County , Illinois , † July 1, 1966 in Pinckney , Michigan ) was an American middle and long distance runner who won two Olympic silver medals in 1904.

Life

Verner attended Purdue University since 1903 and was noticed there as a good runner. In the first year he set a house record in the mile run . Even in the usual competitions between the individual universities, he attracted attention from the ranks of established runners with good performances. For the Olympic Games in St. Louis in 1904 there were no elimination competitions in the USA, the athletes were predominantly proposed by the most well-known sports clubs and universities. Verner became a member of the Chicago Athletic Association and was one of the chosen participants for the Olympic Games.

Verner's first competition in St. Louis was the 2590 meter obstacle course on the track, which was held in a run with seven athletes, six of whom were from the United States. Verner played no role in the decision and took fourth place, although the gap to third-placed was not recorded. Three days later, Verner started the 800-meter run , which was also held in a single run with 13 athletes. Again, Verner was never able to intervene in the fight for first place and came in sixth.

Another two days later, the 1500 meter run was on the program. Nine athletes started in the only decisive run, seven of them came from the United States. This time Verner was one of the top three runners from the start, but in the end he could n't do anything against the final sprint of James Lightbody, who was outstanding in these games, and took second place.

On the same day, the last athletics competition was a team run over 4 miles, which was actually a city battle between runners from Chicago and New York City . The Chicago runners have been announced as a team for the Chicago Athletic Association . A run was held in which ten runners (five for each team) took part. The team evaluation was based on the number of places (1st place = 1 point; 2nd place = 2 points etc.). Verner started for the Chicago Athletic Association and took an excellent third place of all ten runners behind the winner Arthur Newton from New York and his teammate James Lightbody. However, his team lost the rating against the team of the New York Athletic Club, statistically they finished second despite the defeat, because other teams were not at the start.

After the Olympics, Verner had a number of other notable successes to show, in particular winning the US championship title in 1905 over five miles. He set new records for his university and the state of Indiana over 880 yards and 1 mile in the Big Ten Conference competitions .

In 1906 Verner was on the list of proposals for the 1906 Olympic Intermediate Games in Athens. However, Verner decided not to participate, preferring to support his team in his senior year at Purdue University and prepare for his degree. In the same year he graduated as a mechanical engineer .

Verner then ended his sporting career and concentrated on his job. In 1908 he went as a lecturer at the University of Michigan , where he taught descriptive geometry and technical drawing , from 1910 to 1912 he finally taught classical mechanical engineering . After teaching, he accepted a position in the Washtenaw County Treasury in Ann Arbor .

Placements at the Olympic Games

• III. 1904 Olympic Games, St. Louis
  • 1500 m - silver with 4: 06.8 min (gold to James Lightbody from the USA with 4: 05.4 min; bronze to Lacey Hearn from the USA)
  • 4 Mile Team - Silver with the Chicago Athletic Association Team (Gold to New York Athletic Club )
  • 2590 m obstacle course - fourth place (gold to James Lightbody from the USA with 7: 39.6 min)
  • 800 m - sixth place (gold to James Lightbody from the USA with 1: 56.0 min)

Web links

• Frank Verner in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )