Gert Potgieter

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Gert Potgieter (actually: Gerhardus Cornelius Potgieter ; born April 16, 1937 in Pretoria ) is a South African track and field athlete who was among the world's best in the 400-meter hurdles in the second half of the 1950s . He was the first to run this route electronically stopped in less than 50 seconds. On the list of the world's best of the year, it ranked third in 1957, second in 1958 and 1960 and even first in 1959. Potgieter was known for his habit of changing ankle bones in the middle of the run, so that he ran half of the hurdles in a 13-man and half in a 14-man rhythm.

Potgieter's year of success was 1958 when he won two gold medals at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff :

  • Over 440 yards hurdles in the world record time of 49.73 s in front of the Australian David Lean in 50.59 s and the Kenyan Bartonjo Rotich in 51.75 s
  • over 4 times 440 yards in 3: 08.21 min before Great Britain in 3: 09.61 min and Jamaica in 3: 10.08 min

In the following year 1959 luck was on his side too: he met his future wife, the German long jumper Renate Junker , who was in South Africa as a tourist. In the Olympic years of 1956 and 1960, however, he was unlucky. At the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956 he would have won a medal if he hadn't got stuck at the last hurdle and dropped from third to last place. Four years later, things got worse for him. First of all, he gave himself the best birthday present when he covered the 440 yard hurdles in 49.3 s in Bloemfontein at the South African championships on April 16 after he had already won the title over 220 yard hurdles (22.8 s) and was allowed to learn that this time was recognized as a new world record, although it had been run on a 500-meter track with only one curve. However, the expected duel with the American Glenn Davis was not to come. A few weeks before the Olympic Games in Rome , Potgieter suffered a serious car accident during a stay in Germany in which he lost an eye. The attempt at a comeback failed.

Gert Potgieter and his wife now live in Pretoria .

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Track & Field News: World Rankings By Nation - Men's 400 Hurdles ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 22 kB)
personal data
SURNAME Potgieter, Gert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Potgieter, Gerhardus Cornelius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African hurdler
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Pretoria