Lee Evans (athlete)

Lee Evans
Lee Evans (2008)
Full name	Lee Edward Evans
nation	United States
birthday	February 25, 1947
place of birth	Madera ,  United States
size	180 cm
Weight	78 kg
date of death	May 19, 2021
Place of death	Lagos , Nigeria
Career
discipline	sprint
Best performance	100 m: 10.9 s (1966) 200 m: 20.4 s (1969) 400 m: 43.86 s (1968)
society	Santa Clara Valley Youth Village
Medal table
Olympic games 2 × 0 × 0 ×
Olympic games gold 1968 Mexico City 400 m gold 1968 Mexico City 4 × 400 m  Pan American Games gold 1967 Winnipeg 400 m gold 1967 Winnipeg 4 × 400 m

Lee Edward Evans (born February 25, 1947 in Madera , California , † May 19, 2021 in Lagos , Nigeria ) was an American athlete and Olympic champion .

Evans was undefeated in high school , winning his first AAU championship over 440  yards in 1966 shortly after graduating. He repeated his victory the following year, winning both the AAU and NCAA 400-meter titles in 1968 . He had his first world record in Los Angeles in 1966 as a member of the US national team in the 4 x 400 meter relay with 2: 59.6 minutes, the first team time under three minutes. The following year he broke the world record in Fresno over 4 × 220 yards with a time of 1: 22.1 min.

At the elimination competitions in South Lake Tahoe, he set a new world record with 44.0 seconds on September 14, 1968, which was not recognized by the IAAF, as his time was achieved with the so-called brush shoes . Instead, Larry James' time of 44.1 seconds was recognized by the IAAF as a new world record.

At the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City , he improved his own personal best in the finals to the new world record of 43.86 s, with which he won the gold medal, ahead of the other two Americans Larry James and Ron Freeman . Days later he won the team gold medal in the 4 x 400 meter relay race, also with a new world record in a time of 2: 56.1 min, together with his teammates Vince Matthews , Freeman and James, ahead of the teams from Kenya ( Silver) and Germany (bronze). Both world records were valid for 20 years and, together with Bob Beamon's long jump world record (8.90 m), were considered the world records of the century for those Olympic Games.

In 1969 and 1972 he won the AAU championships over 400 meters. At the 1972 Olympics in Munich Evans should attend because he had by 4-400-meter relay team qualified in the US knockouts as the fourth runner for the. Since Vince Matthews and Wayne Collett were excluded from the games because of their behavior at the award ceremony for the 400-meter run and John Smith was out of the 400-meter final because of a hamstring, the USA no longer had enough runners for the relay. Because of this, no US season could start anymore, and Lee Evans was left without commitment.

Lee Evans later worked as a consultant in Nigeria. In 2014, he was banned from the Nigerian Athletics Federation for four years for giving an athlete performance-enhancing drugs that resulted in a positive doping test .

Evans died in Nigeria on May 19, 2021, aged 74, after suffering a stroke a few days earlier.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Olympic champ Lee Evans banned ESPN April 1, 2014
2. ↑ Record-setting sprinter, '68 Olympic activist Lee Evans dies , apnews.com, published and accessed May 19, 2021