Salvatore Morale

Salvatore Morale (born November 4, 1938 in Teolo , Padua ) is a former Italian athlete and Olympic Knight.

Ironically, at the 1960 Olympic Games at home in Rome, Salvatore Morale missed the finals of the 400-meter hurdles by a hundredth of a second . In 1960 an Olympic final was held for the last time on a track with only six tracks, which means that in all games after that he would have reached the final as fourth of his semi-finals (with the sixth-fastest time).

A year later, Morale set a European record with 49.7 seconds. At the European Championships in Belgrade in 1962 , Morale then reached the zenith of his skills and was European champion with 49.2 s, setting the world record for Glenn Davis . With the Italian 4 x 400 meter relay , Morale finished fifth in the European Championship final.

Two years later at the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 1964 , Morale did reach an Olympic final. It was won by the American Rex Cawley , who had broken the world record to 49.1 s a month before the games. Cawley was undisputed with 49.6 s, followed by the Briton John Cooper and Morale, who won an Olympic bronze medal, with 50.1 s each . After the 1964 Games, Morale stopped playing.

Salvatore Morale was not a power runner, but was particularly convincing stylistically when crossing the hurdles. With a height of 1.86 m, he had a competition weight of 75 kg.

literature

• Manfred Holzhausen: world records and world record holder. 110m / 120y hurdles race - 400m / 440y hurdles race. Grevenbroich 1997