Pietro Mennea

Pietro Mennea
Full name	Pietro Paolo Mennea
nation	Italy
birthday	June 28, 1952
place of birth	Barletta
size	180 cm
Weight	73 kg
date of death	21st March 2013
Place of death	Rome
Career
discipline	sprint
Best performance	10.01 s ( 100 m ) 19.72 s ( 200 m )
Medal table
Olympic games 1 × 0 × 2 × World championships 0 × 1 × 1 × European championships 3 × 2 × 0 ×
Olympic games bronze Munich 1972 200 m gold Moscow 1980 200 m bronze Moscow 1980 4 × 400 m  World championships silver Helsinki 1983 4 × 100 m bronze Helsinki 1983 200 m European championships bronze Helsinki 1971 4 × 100 m gold Rome 1974 200 m silver Rome 1974 100 m silver Rome 1974 4 × 100 m gold Prague 1978 100 m gold Prague 1978 200 m

Pietro Paolo Mennea (born June 28, 1952 in Barletta , † March 21, 2013 in Rome ) was an Italian athlete . With 19.72 s he held the world record over 200 meters for 17 years ; the time still exists today as a European record.

biography

Pietro Mennea's interest in athletics was, according to his own account, aroused in 1968 when he watched the 200-meter world record run by the American Tommie Smith at the Olympic Games in Mexico City on television. Unsuccessful in the middle distances, he concentrated on the sprint distances and began to compete for the Italian national team at the age of 17. The first international medal in Mennea's long career came at the 1971 European Championships in Helsinki , when the Italian 4 x 100 meter relay won bronze. At the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich , he was third over 200 meters. He compensated for his rather moderate stride length of 2.30 meters with his high step frequency and endurance.

In 1974 he became European champion over 200 meters in Rome . Over 100 meters and in the 4 x 100 meter relay, he reached second place. After some poor performance in the 1976 season, Mennea decided not to participate in the Montreal Olympics. After protests in the Italian public, he changed his mind. After all, he finished fourth over 200 meters, as well as in the sprint relay. At the European Championships in Prague in 1978 , he won the gold medal in both the 200 and 100 meters.

In 1979 Mennea, who studied physics and later political science at the University of Bari , took part in the student world championships, which were held in the high altitude of Mexico City . With his victory time of 19.72 s achieved on September 12, 1979, he beat the world record set by his role model Tommie Smith. This record time was only broken 17 years later, on June 24, 1996, by Michael Johnson and improved to 19.66 s. It was criticized that the world record was only achieved because of the altitude. However, Mennea held the world record for lower altitudes from 1980 to 1983 with 19.96 s, set in his hometown of Barletta.

The world record holder was one of the favorites for the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow , largely because of the US boycott . Mennea beat Briton Allan Wells by three hundredths of a second in the 200 meter final and became Olympic champion.

Mennea, also known as Freccia del Sud ('Arrow of the South') in Italy , then announced his resignation in order to have more time for his studies. However, he soon made his comeback and won the bronze medal over 200 meters at the World Athletics Championships in Helsinki in 1983 . At the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles , Mennea was the first athlete ever to have reached the 200 meter final for the fourth time in a row; in the end he finished seventh. After a second resignation, a second comeback followed. At the 1988 Olympics in Seoul , however, he failed over 200 meters in the heats.

In 1998 he became general manager of the Italian soccer club US Salernitana . From 1999 to 2004 Mennea was on the list of Democratici members of the European Parliament , but did not make it through the re-election. In 2002, a candidacy for mayor of the city of Barletta was unsuccessful.

Mennea died of cancer at the age of 60.

Awards

• Italy's Sportsman of the Year ( La Gazzetta dello Sport ): 1979, 1980 and World Sportsman of the Year 1980

Web links

Commons : Pietro Mennea  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website (Italian)
• CV (Italian)
• Pietro Mennea in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Entry on Pietro Mennea in the Members' database of the European Parliament

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Athletics: world record sprinter Pietro Mennea is dead ; Spiegel online , March 21, 2013
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Pietro Mennea . In: Internationales Sportarchiv 45/1983 of October 31, 1983, supplemented by news from MA-Journal up to week 22/2002 (accessed via Munzinger Online ).
3. ↑ newsreel ; Sport picture from June 26, 1996, p. 58
4. ↑ Sprint legend Pietro Mennea has passed away. In: Der Standard , March 21, 2013