Jesús Ángel García

Jesús Ángel García in February 2012

Jesús Ángel García Bragado (born October 17, 1969 in Madrid ) is a Spanish walker who specializes in the 50 km distance . He holds the record for the most participations of a male distance athlete in the Olympic Games and the most participations in the World Athletics Championships . It is still active today (as of October 2019).

Athletic career

In 1992 he made his Olympic debut at the Barcelona Games , where he finished tenth.

The following year he won gold at the World Athletics Championships in Stuttgart in 3:41:41 h. At the European Athletics Championships in Helsinki in 1994 he was fourth, at the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg fifth.

At the 1996 Olympics , he gave up; for this he won silver the following year at the 1997 World Championships in Athens, 13 seconds behind Robert Korzeniowski , the man who was to dominate this sport in the following years.

At the next three international championships, the success failed: at the European championships in 1998 he was disqualified, at the 1999 World Championships in Seville, he gave up, and at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney he was only twelfth.

In the 2000s he was at the forefront again: at the 2001 World Championships in Edmonton, he won silver and at the 2002 European Championships in Munich, bronze.

In 2003 he came in sixth at the 2003 World Championships in Paris-Saint-Denis and fifth at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens . A disqualification at the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki was followed by winning the silver medal at the 2006 European Championships in Gothenburg behind the surprise winner Yohann Diniz (FRA).

At the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, he won the bronze medal over the distance of 50 km in a time of 3:41:37 h.

García is married to the former world champion in rhythmic gymnastics Carmen Acedo . With a height of 1.71 m, he has a competition weight of 62 kg.

Jesús Ángel García in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )