Robert Fowler (athlete)

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Robert Arthur "Bob" Fowler (born September 15, 1882 in Trinity , Crown Colony of Newfoundland , British Empire ; † unknown) was a Newfoundland- born American long-distance runner who took part in marathons in the Olympic Games in 1904 and 1906 and in 1909 set a world record this route ran.

Life

Already in his youth, Fowler left the British Crown Colony of Newfoundland with his family in 1898 and moved to Boston in the United States. Only there did he appear athletic, in 1901 he ran his first race, a year later he made his debut on the marathon distance and finished ninth in the Boston Athletic Association Marathon . In the following years he achieved top six results on various occasions.

In 1904 he took part in the Olympic marathon through the suburbs of the host city of St. Louis , along with 31 other starters - more than half of whom represented the United States with 17 athletes . The external conditions made the competition a great challenge, which was sometimes viewed as "the most difficult Olympic marathon in history": The temperatures were around 32 ° C and there was only one water point on the hilly course. Fowler had to end the race that Thomas Hicks won, like the majority of the participants. In his second Olympic appearance at the interludes in 1906 , Fowler did not reach the goal, as did 38 out of 53 participants. There are contradicting information about the time of his departure: The Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador writes that he was six kilometers from the finish in third place, but then had to give up because of foot problems, another report mentions a significantly earlier exit time.

In contrast to his failures in the Olympics, Fowler achieved excellent results in other marathons. Between 1903 and 1912 he took part in the Boston Marathon several times and placed three times in the top three: in 1905 and 1908 he took third place, in 1907 he was second only to Tom Longboat . After finishing second, Fowler said he was stopped for two minutes during the race by a train blocking the running track. In 1909, Fowler held the world's fastest marathon time for a short time - from January 1 to February 12 - after finishing the run in Yonkers with a time of 2: 52: 45.4 hours. The length of the route was first standardized with the Olympic Games 1908 on 42.195 km, so Fowler in the IAAF conducted chronological list of all the paceman in the marathon behind John Hayes , the Olympic champion from 1908, is in the second position.

After his marathon career, Fowler served in the United States Air Force in World War I and gave physical education at colleges and universities on the US east coast. He later also worked as an electrician for the Boston Naval Shipyard .

citizenship

After his family emigrated in 1898, Fowler lived in the United States and was therefore long regarded as a member of the US Olympic team. Since he did not receive US citizenship before 1906, he was formally a citizen of the Crown Colony of Newfoundland during the 1904 Olympic Games and thus the first Newfoundland Olympic participant - "regardless of which jersey he wore". At the same time, he would be the only representative that Newfoundland would have sent to the Olympic Games as an independent team. The Sports-Reference database lists it as such .

Web links

  • Robert Fowler in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original ), accessed on August 13, 2016.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Fred Mason: A 'New-found' Olympic Nation - Newfoundland's Involvement with the Olympic Games, 1904-1934 ( Memento of the original from August 13, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , in: Crowther, Robert Knight Barney & MK Heine (Eds.): Cultural Imperialism in Action: Critiques in the Global Olympic Trust. Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium for Olympic Research , 2006, Link at library.la84.org. Retrieved August 14, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / library.la84.org
  2. ↑ a b Joseph Roberts Smallwood, Robert DW Pitt, Catherine Horan, Bertram G. Riggs: Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, volume 2 . Newfoundland Book Publishers (1967) Ltd., St John's 1984, ISBN 0-920508-13-8 , p. 352. Retrieved August 14, 2016.
  3. ^ Bill Mallon: The 1904 Olympic Games . McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina 1999, p. 57.
  4. ^ Canadian Indian Victorious On Changed Course at archive.boston.com, accessed August 14, 2016.
  5. ↑ IAAF world best list , accessed on August 14, 2016.
  6. ^ Robert Fowler in the database of Sports-Reference (English), accessed on August 13, 2016.
  7. ↑ Larry Dohey: Archival Moments: Newfoundlanders at the Olympics ( Memento of the original from August 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on thetelegram.com. Released August 5, 2016, accessed August 14, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thetelegram.com
  8. ↑ Overview of Newfoundland's Olympic participants on sports-reference.com, accessed on August 14, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Fowler, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fowler, Robert Arthur; Fowler, Bob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American marathon runner
DATE OF BIRTH September 15, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Trinity , Crown Colony Newfoundland , British Empire
DATE OF DEATH after 1912