Robert Garrett (athlete)

Robert Garrett
Garrett throwing a discus
nation	United States
birthday	May 24, 1875
place of birth	Baltimore County
size	188 cm
Weight	81 kg
date of death	April 25, 1961
Place of death	Baltimore
Career
discipline	Discus throw , shot put , high jump , standing jump , long jump
society	Princeton Tigers
Medal table
Olympic games - × 2 × 4 ×
Olympic games silver Athens 1896 Shot put silver Athens 1896 Discus throw bronze Athens 1896 high jump bronze Athens 1896 Long jump bronze Paris 1900 Shot put bronze Paris 1900 Triple jump

Robert S. Garrett (born May 24, 1875 in Baltimore County , Maryland , † April 25, 1961 ) was an American track and field athlete , tug of war and Olympic champion .

Career

At the First Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 , he won the shot put and discus throw . Furthermore, he took second place in the high jump and long jump . In the II. Olympic Games in Paris in 1900 , he finished three times third place in the standing triple jump , the triple jump and the shot put. In addition, in 1900 he and his team took part in a tug of war exhibition. Despite registering, he did not take part in the discus throw because the competition was held on a Sunday and he said that he could not agree to a start on Sunday with his Christian faith. With his successes in Athens, Robert Garrett became the best American and overall the sixth best Olympian in Athens.

Robert Garrett in Athens 1896

Garrett came from a wealthy banking family and studied at Princeton University . He was excellent at athletics, and therefore became the captain of the Princeton athletics team during his junior and senior years. Garrett was primarily a shot putter, but he also participated in the jump disciplines. At the first Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, Professor William Milligan Sloane suggested that he try the discus throw, which was then unknown in America.

They consulted scientists to get a drawing of a discussion. Garrett then went to a blacksmith to have the throwing device made. It weighed about 5 kilograms and it was nearly impossible to throw the discus. So Robert gave up the idea of ​​taking part in the discus competition. Since he came from a wealthy family, he paid for his passage to Athens and the three of his classmates ( Francis Lane third over 100 meters, Herbert Jamison second over 400 meters, Albert Tyler second in the pole vault). When he discovered in Athens that the discus used at the Games only weighed 2 kilograms, he decided to take part in the competition for fun.

The Greek throwers all threw according to the traditional technique. Garrett, on the other hand, used the turning technique to increase the speed of the discussion when it was dropped. Garrett's first two throws looked very awkward. The disc echoed through the air and narrowly missed the audience. However, his last litter sailed 19 cm further than that of the best Greek competitor Panagiotis Paraskevopoulos . Paraskevopoulos was able to improve again with his last throw, but he did not manage to surpass Garrett. In 1897 Garrett became the IC4A shot put champion.

After his studies, he became a banker and financially supported various sciences ( history and archeology ). He funded and helped organize an archaeological expedition to Syria led by Howard Crosby Butler from 1899 to 1900. As a hobby he collected manuscripts from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance . In 1942 he bequeathed his collection of more than 10,000 manuscripts to Princeton University.

Web links

• Robert Garrett in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )