Frank Wykoff

Frank Wykoff
Full name	Frank Clifford Wykoff
nation	United States
birthday	October 29, 1909
place of birth	Des Moines
size	178 cm
Weight	68 kg
date of death	January 1, 1980
Place of death	Altadena
Career
discipline	sprint
Best performance	10.4 s ( 100 m ) 20.8 s ( 200 m )
society	Los Angeles Athletic Club
Medal table
Olympic games 3 × 0 × 0 ×
Olympic games gold Amsterdam 1928 4 × 100 m gold Los Angeles 1932 4 × 100 m gold Berlin 1936 4 × 100 m

Frank Clifford Wykoff (born October 29, 1909 in Des Moines , Iowa , † January 1, 1980 in Altadena , California ) was an American athlete and Olympic champion . To this day, he is the only athlete who has won three Olympic gold medals in relay races and has set a new world record each time.

Career

Wykoff had his international sporting breakthrough with the IX. 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam . He finished the 100-meter run with a fourth place and in the 4-by-100-meter relay he won the team gold medal with a new one , starting as the first runner, together with his teammates James Quinn , Charles Borah and Henry Russell World record time of 41.0 s, ahead of the teams from Germany and Great Britain .

After the Olympics he went to the University of Southern California where Dean Cromwell trained him. In 1928 and 1931 he won the AAU championships over 100 yards and the NCAA championships in 1930 and 1931 over the same distance. In May 1930 he set a new world record of 9.4 s over 100 yards, which he confirmed a month later. In 1931 he and the team set a new world record with 40.8 s over 4 x 100 meters.

At the X. Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1932 , he was the last to start in the 4 x 100 meter relay and finished this with a total time of 40.0 s and with a gold medal, together with Bob Kiesel , Emmett Toppino and Hector Dyer , in front of the teams from Germany and Italy . Four years later, with the XI. At the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin , Wykoff was able to repeat his success from 1932. Together with Jesse Owens , Ralph Metcalfe and Foy Draper , he won the gold medal with a new world record of 39.8 seconds ahead of the teams from Italy and Germany. After retiring from active sports, Wykoff worked in the Los Angeles School Board.

Web links

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