John Bray (athlete)

athletics
bronze	1900	1500 m

John Bray (born August 19, 1875 - July 18, 1945 ) was an American athlete and medalist at the Olympic Games .

Bray was a student at Williams College , one of the most prestigious private universities in the United States, and a member of the New York Athletic Club (NYAC) . During this time he was one of the best middle-distance runners in the USA. In his participations in 1898 and 1899 in the championships of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) , which corresponded to the national championships of the USA, he finished over 880  yards and 1  mile each places in the top three. He couldn't win a title.

On the thirtieth May 1900 Bray participated in a sports festival in Bayonne ( New Jersey part). He took part in a 1,500 meter run, an unusual length for the USA. Its running time of 4: 09.0 min meant the fastest time ever run and was unofficially reported as a world record . With this achievement he recommended himself for the US team, which traveled to the Summer Olympics in Paris in 1900 .

In Paris, Bray took part in the 800-meter run and the 1500-meter run . Although he was able to qualify for the final over 800 meters, he only finished sixth and last.

The heats over 1500 meters should be held on July 15th, a Sunday. With Bray, three other US athletes wanted to take part. Two of them, John Cregan and Alex Grant , refused to start any sport on a Sunday for religious reasons. The organizers basically had no sympathy with the wishes of many US athletes who did not want to compete on a Sunday. They decided without further ado to forego the preliminaries over 1500 m because of the now lower number of participants and to organize the final run immediately. Bray was able to use the unexpected chance, became the best US athlete and took third place just under two meters in front of David Hall . The top four all stayed below Bray's world record time.

The placements at the Olympic Games for John Bray:

• II. Summer Olympics 1900, Paris
  • 1500 m - BRONZE with 4: 07.2 min (gold to Charles Bennett , GBR with 4: 06.2 min; silver to Henri Deloge , FRA with 4: 06.6 min)
  • 800 m - sixth with unknown time (gold to Alfred Tysoe , GBR with 2: 01.2 min)

Nothing is known about the further life of John Bray, who reached the age of almost 70 years.

Web links

• John Bray in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )