Rafael Vidal

Rafael Vidal
Personal information
Surname:	Rafael Antonio Vidal Castro
Nation:	Venezuela
Swimming style (s) :	Freestyle, butterfly
College team:	Florida Gators
Birthday:	January 6, 1964
Place of birth:	Caracas , Venezuela
Date of death:	February 12, 2005
Place of death:	Caracas , Venezuela
Size:	1.80 m
Weight:	72 kg
Medal table
Olympic games 0 × 0 × 1 × Pan American Games 0 × 0 × 5 ×

Rafael Antonio Vidal Castro (born January 6, 1964 in Caracas , † February 12, 2005 there ) was a Venezuelan swimmer .

Career

Rafael Vidal first took part in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow at the age of 16 . In his competitions over 100 m and 200 m butterfly , however, he was eliminated both times in the preliminary run. At the age of 20, Rafael Vidal was the first Venezuelan swimmer to win an Olympic medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles . In the 200 m butterfly competition , Vidal was one of the smallest athletes in the final run with a height of 1.80 meters. However, he was able to keep Michael Groß, 20 centimeters taller, at a distance for a long time. Only shortly before the finish was the West German large able to hit Vidal with his elongated arms and displaced him to the bronze rank. However, this bronze medal made him a national celebrity in Venezuela.

A year later, Vidal left his home country and began his bachelor's degree in computer and information science at the University of Florida in Gainesville, USA . There he swam for the Florida Gators and competed in the National Collegiate Athletic Association . From 1981 to 1985 he was trained by Randy Reese .

Upon his return to Venezuela, Vidal was employed as a sports commentator for a local television station and became a well-known television personality. In 1998 he founded a company with Cheche Vidal .

On the early morning of February 12, 2005, Vidal died in a traffic accident in Caracas at the age of 41 when a driver of an illegal road race drove into Vidal's car.

Trivia

On February 12, 2006, a swimming competition took place for the first time under the name Un Millón de metros por Rafael Vidal ( German  One Million Meters for Rafael Vidal ), where more than fourteen million meters were swum by swimmers from Venezuela and around the world. The event has taken place every year since then.

Web links

• Rafael Vidal in the database of Olympedia.org (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Rafael Vidal wins a bronze medal ( Memento from January 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive )