George Sheldon (water diver)

George Sheldon
Personal information
Surname:	George Herbert Sheldon
Nationality:	United States
Discipline (s) :	Diving
Birthday:	May 17, 1874
Date of death:	November 25, 1907
Place of death:	St. Louis, Missouri

George Herbert Sheldon (born May 17, 1874 , † November 25, 1907 in St. Louis ) was an American water diver who competed in the 10 m high diving. At the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis, he became the first Olympic champion in diving .

Diving was first part of the Olympic program at the 1904 Games. Only US and German athletes took part. In the first competition, the 10 m high diving, board jumps from lower heights were also part of the competition. The competition was very controversial. The German jumpers showed the heavier jumps, the US jumpers the more elegant, so a dispute arose about which performance should be rated higher. Sheldon was eventually named the winner of the competition, but after a protest by the German athletes, the award ceremony was canceled and the final decision was postponed. Only after a week were the results finally confirmed and Sheldon officially became the first Olympic champion in diving.

A year later he won the tower title at the AAU championship in New York , where fixed evaluation criteria were applied for the jumps for the first time.

Sheldon, an ophthalmologist in St. Louis, died of heart disease at the age of 33. His achievements are still considered to be decisive for the introduction of new evaluation guidelines that assess the entire jump including elegance and immersion phase, and not just acrobatics and difficulty. In 1989 he was inducted into the Diving Hall of Fame .

Web links

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

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Olympic Diving Controversies. Retrieved April 1, 2012 . 
2. ^ Early History of Olympic Diving. Retrieved April 1, 2012 . 
3. ↑ George Sheldon in the International Swimming Hall of Fame (English)