Rafer Johnson

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Rafer Johnson wears the US flag at the opening ceremony for the 1960 Olympic Games

Rafer Lewis Johnson (born August 18, 1934 in Hillsboro , Texas , † December 2, 2020 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American athlete who was Olympic champion in the decathlon in 1960 .

biography

Johnson's family moved to Kingsburg , California when he was nine years old. He initially played American football , baseball and basketball on various school teams and decided to become a decathlete after seeing double Olympic gold medalist Bob Mathias on television.

In 1954, Johnson played his first decathlon during his freshman year at UCLA . In his fourth competition, he set a new world record. In 1954 he also won the title at the Pan American Games. At the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956 he was second in the decathlon. He had also qualified for the long jump , but then suffered a minor injury and was therefore unable to start. His coach at UCLA was Elvin C. Drake .

Due to various injuries (including a car accident) Johnson missed the seasons 1957 and 1959. But in 1958 and 1960 he improved the world record once. It was founded in 1958 by the magazine Sports Illustrated for Athlete of the Year chosen.

The culmination of his career took place at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome , where he became Olympic champion in the decathlon . His friend, training and study colleague, the Taiwanese Yang Chuan-Kwang came in second . Johnson received another Athlete of the Year award for winning the Olympics , this time from the Associated Press .

After winning the Olympics, Johnson ended his career. He has had minor roles in several films and has worked as a television sports commentator. Among other things, he also appeared in Jenseits des Ruwenzori , where he played alongside Roger Moore . He had a bigger role in the film Tarzan and the Jungle Boy , where he played the adversary of the title hero. In 1968 he worked on the team of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy . When he was shot dead on June 5, 1968 in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Johnson and Kennedy's other companions overwhelmed the assassin.

In 1984, he ignited at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles as a circuit rotor, the Olympic flame after the he was a member of the executive committee Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee had already been involved in organizing the Games. He took his last film roles in 1989 in the film James Bond 007 - License to Kill and Highway Chaoten .

Johnson's brother Jimmy was a very successful American football player , and his daughter Jennifer played beach volleyball at the 2000 Sydney Olympics .

Johnson died at his Sherman Oaks home in early December 2020, aged 86.

Documentary film

  • The Rafer Johnson Story . TV documentary by Mel Stuart (director) and Malvin Wald (screenplay), USA 1961, color, 60 minutes

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Richard Goldstein: Rafer Johnson, Winner of a Memorable Decathlon, Is Dead . In: The New York Times . December 2, 2020, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed December 3, 2020]).
  2. ↑ Peter Ahrens: US athlete Rafer Johnson has died. In: Der Spiegel . December 3, 2020, accessed December 3, 2020 .
  3. ^ Richard Goldstein: Rafer Johnson, Winner of a Memorable Decathlon, Is Dead. In: The New York Times . December 2, 2020, accessed December 3, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Johnson, Rafer
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Johnson, Rafer Lewis (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American athlete and actor
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Hillsboro , Texas
DATE OF DEATH December 2, 2020
Place of death Los Angeles , California