Jonathan Edwards (athlete)

Jonathan Edwards
Jonathan Edwards 2000 in Sydney
Full name	Jonathan David Edwards
nation	United Kingdom
birthday	May 10, 1966
place of birth	London
size	182 cm
Weight	73 kg
Career
discipline	Triple jump
Best performance	18.29 m
society	Gateshead Harriers
status	resigned
End of career	2003
Medal table
Olympic games 1 × 1 × 0 × World championships 2 × 1 × 2 × European championships 1 × 0 × 1 × Indoor World Cup 0 × 1 × 0 × Indoor European Championships 1 × 0 × 0 × Commonwealth Games 1 × 2 × 0 ×
Olympic games silver Atlanta 1996 Triple jump gold Sydney 2000 Triple jump  World championships bronze Stuttgart 1993 Triple jump gold Gothenburg 1995 Triple jump silver Athens 1997 Triple jump bronze Seville 1999 Triple jump gold Edmonton 2001 Triple jump  European championships gold Budapest 1998 Triple jump bronze Munich 2002 Triple jump  Indoor world championships silver Lisbon 2001 Triple jump  European Indoor Championships gold Valencia 1998 Triple jump  Commonwealth Games silver Auckland 1990 Triple jump silver Victoria 1994 Triple jump gold Manchester 2002 Triple jump

Jonathan Edwards (2012)

Jonathan David Edwards , CBE (born May 10, 1966 in London ) is a former British triple jumper and Olympic champion . He is the current world record holder in the triple jump and in 1995 was the first triple jumper in the world to jump over 18 meters.

Edwards was born the son of a vicar . His first appearance at international competitions was peppered with a few obstacles. Because of his then strictly Christian faith, he initially refused to take part in competitions that were held on a Sunday . As a result, he missed the chance to participate in the World Athletics Championships in 1991 . At the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, ​​he was eliminated from qualification.

Two years later, after numerous discussions with his father, he changed this attitude. He came to believe that God had given him the talent to show it in competition. At the 1993 World Championships , he started the qualifying round on a Sunday for the first time and won bronze in the final.

In the run-up to the 1995 World Championships , Edwards improved on July 18, 1995 in Salamanca the ten-year-old world record of the American Willie Banks by one centimeter to the new width of 17.98 m. The competition at the World Championships in Gothenburg three weeks later went down in history: With his first jump, Edwards landed at the new world record distance of 18.16 m. 20 minutes later he improved the record by another 13 centimeters in his second jump and became world champion for the first time with this distance of 18.29 m. The Mercedes, which he received as a bonus for winning the world title, was sold by Edwards and donated the proceeds of 70,000 euros to charitable purposes, referring to such a family tradition. In the same year he was voted Sportsman of the Year by the BBC .

At the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta Edwards had to admit defeat to the American Kenny Harrison and won the silver medal. In the following years he was repeatedly on the podium at international championships: in 1997 he won silver at the World Championships in Athens , in 1998 gold at the European Indoor Championships in Valencia and at the European Championships in Budapest and bronze at the 1999 World Championships in Seville .

The victory at the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000 was followed the following year by the silver medal at the World Indoor Championships in Lisbon and the second world championship title at the World Championships in Edmonton . In 2002 he won gold at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester and bronze at the European Championships in Munich .

After the World Championships in 2003 in Paris / Saint-Denis, where he only reached twelfth place with 16.31 m after an ankle injury, he ended his career.

Edwards, who successfully completed a physics degree at the University of Durham in 1987 , embarked on a career in the media industry and presented the program Songs of Praise, in which Christian songs were sung, on the BBC's television program until 2007 . In the meantime, Edwards has distanced himself from Christianity and from belief in divine entities.

Edwards also served as a board member of the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), which was responsible for planning and organizing the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympics.

Awards

• Europe's Sportsman of the Year (PAP) 1995
• European Sportsman of the Year (UEPS) 1995
• Champion des champions (international) 1995
• World Athlete of the Year 1995
• European Athlete of the Year 1995, 1998
• Britain's Sportsman of the Year 1995

Web links

Commons : Jonathan Edwards  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Jonathan Edwards in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Jonathan Edwards in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• I lost my faith in God when I retired, says Olympic hero Jonathan Edwards , interview with the Daily Mail , June 11, 2007

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Jonathan Edwards - A Mercedes for the poor" in Sport-Bild from June 26, 1996, p. 45
2. ↑ Olympic triple jumper returns for Honorary Degree , accessed August 24, 2013