George Kerr (athlete)

George Kerr medal table
Sprinter , middle distance runner
West Indian Federation , Jamaica
Olympic games
bronze	1960 Rome	800 m
bronze	1960 Rome	4 × 400 m
Commonwealth Games
gold	1962 Perth	440 yd
silver	1962 Perth	880 yd
bronze	1966 Kingston	880 yd
Pan American Games
gold	1959 Chicago	400 m
gold	1959 Chicago	4 × 400 m
Central America and Caribbean Games
gold	1962 Kingston	400 m
gold	1962 Kingston	800 m
gold	1962 Kingston	4 × 400 m

George Ezekiel Kerr (born October 16, 1937 in Hanover Parish , † June 15, 2012 in Kingston ) was a Jamaican sprinter and middle-distance runner . At the Pan American Games in 1959 and at the Olympic Games in 1960 , he joined the West Indian Federation , to which Jamaica was a member at the time.

Career

At the age of 19, Kerr started as the youngest member of the six-person Jamaican team at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne in the 400-meter run and in the 4-by-400-meter relay . Over 400 meters he was eliminated in the quarter-finals as fourth of his run. With the season, however, he reached the finals. The Jamaican team came sixth and last in 3: 11.3 minutes, but was subsequently disqualified because Kerr had illegally obstructed the German runner Walter Oberste on the second round . At the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff in 1958 , he started in the 440- yard run and reached the semi-finals.

Kerr attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1958 to 1960 , where he was NCAA champion in the 880-yard run in 1959 and in the 800-meter run in 1960 for the Fighting Illinois team . He won his first international medals at the 1959 Pan American Games in Chicago for the West Indian Federation created a year earlier. He won over 400 meters in 46.1 s ahead of his compatriots Basil Ince and Malcolm Spence . Together with the two of them and Melville Spence , he also secured the gold medal in the 4 x 400 meter relay.

At the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, Kerr won two bronze medals. In the semifinals of the 800 meter run, he set an Olympic record with 1: 47.1 min (according to electronic timekeeping 1: 47.26 min). He achieved the same time in the final (electronically 1: 47.25 min), but had to face the then relatively unknown New Zealander Peter Snell (1: 46.3 / 1: 46.48 min) and the world record holder Roger Moens from Belgium ( 1: 46.5 / 1: 46.55 min). In the 4 x 400 meter relay, Kerr led the team of the West Indian Federation around Malcolm Spence, James Wedderburn and Keith Gardner as the final runner in 3: 04.0 / (3: 04.13) min to another bronze medal. The US relay secured victory in a new world record time of 3: 02.2 / (3: 02.37) minutes ahead of the all-German team (3: 02.7 / 3: 02.84 minutes). Since the West Indian Federation was dissolved again in 1962, it remained the only two Olympic medals for the short-lived Caribbean state.

Kerr, now starting again for Jamaica, won the titles in the 400- and 800-meter run as well as with the 4-by-400-meter relay at the Central America and Caribbean Games in Kingston in 1962 . Such a triple had previously only been achieved by his legendary compatriot Arthur Wint at the 1946 Games in Barranquilla . Shortly after his triumph, Kerr married his college friend Bernice Wright, before leaving for the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Perth that same year . There he won the gold medal over 440 yards and finished second over 880 yards behind Peter Snell.

At the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 1964, Kerr was over 800 meters and fourth in the 4-by-400 relay. In the 800 meter run in particular, he narrowly missed out on a podium finish. It was measured in 1: 45.9 minutes at the same time as third-placed Wilson Kiprugut , who won the first Olympic medal in history for Kenya. Most recently, Kerr finished third at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Kingston in 1966 on the 880-yard route behind New Zealanders Noel Clough and Wilson Kiprugut, and fourth with the Jamaican 4-by-440-yard relay.

In addition to his international successes, Kerr collected a total of five titles at the championships of the West Indian Federation: three in the 800-meter run (1957, 1959, 1960) and one each in the 400-meter run (1959) and one in the 1500-meter run ( 1964). George Kerr was 1.80 m tall and had a competition weight of 70 kg.

Web links

• George Kerr in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Footnotes

1. ↑ Jamaica Observer: Official funeral for Olympian George Kerr ( Memento of the original from June 23, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Article from June 21, 2012 
2. ↑ Mark Butler (Ed.): IAAF Statistics Handbook - 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, Berlin 2009. ( Memento from October 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) IAAF Media & Public Relations Department, 2009, p. 565 (PDF; 4, 8 MB)
3. ↑ gbrathletics.com: NCAA Devision I Championships (Men)
4. ↑ mayaguez2010.com: Official Results ( Memento of March 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 18.3 MB)
5. ↑ Note: The athletics championships of the West Indian Federation do not completely coincide with the existence of the state. They were held annually from 1957 to 1960. After the dissolution of the federation, the championships in 1964 and 1965 were briefly revived for two events.
6. ↑ gbrathletics.com: British West Indies Championships