Ricardo Héber

Ricardo Héber

Ricardo Matías Héber (born September 28, 1927 , † 2002 in Buenos Aires ) was an Argentine athlete who won the javelin throw at the Pan American Games and six times at the South American Championships .

Héber won his first title at the South American Championships in 1947 with 59.59 meters. Two years later he defended his title with 65.56 meters and thus improved the ten-year-old championship record of the Brazilian Egon Falkenberg . In 1951 the first Pan American Games took place in Buenos Aires. With 68.08 meters, Héber won the title in front of his home crowd, one meter ahead of the American Steve Seymour . The 1952 South American Championships were also held in Buenos Aires , and Héber successfully defended his title again with 67.68 meters. Two and a half months later, Héber survived the qualification at the Olympic Games in Helsinki in 1952 with 64.82 meters, but in the final he only threw the spear at 62.82 meters and thus finished 15th.

In 1955 at the Pan American Games in Mexico City, Héber finished second with 66.15 meters behind the American Bud Held , who also exceeded Héber's championship record with 69.77 meters. After the Argentine team had not participated in the South American Championships in 1954 , Héber was able to take back the title with 64.45 meters in 1956 and successfully defend it in 1958 . After a seventh place at the Pan American Games in 1959, Héber won his sixth South American title in 1961 .

It was not until the South American Championships in 1969 that Chilean Rolf Hoppe surpassed Héber's championship record from 1952 with 69.76 meters, and in 1969 Héber finished fifth with 61.12 meters. Héber won his last Argentine championship title in 1971.

Héber's best performance with the spear was 71.04 meters in 1951. With a height of 1.78 meters, his competition weight was 76 kilograms.

literature

• Winfried Kramer: South American Track & Field Championships 1919–1995 . Neunkirchen 1996

Web links

• Ricardo Héber in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Pan American Games
• South American Championships
• Argentine national championships from 1960