Tell Berna

Tell Berna
Tell Berna
Full name	Tell Schirnding Berna
nation	United States
birthday	July 24, 1891
place of birth	Pelham Manor ,  USA
size	188 cm
Weight	70 kg
date of death	April 5th 1975
Place of death	Nantucket , USA
Career
discipline	Long-distance running , cross-country running
Best performance	5000 m: 15: 08.4 min
society	Cornell Big Red Ithaca
Medal table
Olympic games 1 × 0 × 0 ×
Olympic games gold Stockholm 1912 3000 meter team run

Tell Schirnding Berna (born July 24, 1891 in Pelham Manor ( New York ), USA ; † April 5, 1975 in Nantucket ( Massachusetts ), USA) was an American athlete and Olympic champion at the Olympic Games .

Tell Berna was a student at Cornell University , where he distinguished himself as a specialist in middle-distance running . In 1909, at the age of 18, he took part for the first time in the championships of the IC4A (Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America), which corresponded to the student championships in the USA, and surprisingly won the cross-country race over 6 miles . In 1910 he ran a new American record for amateurs on the 2 mile track and only a few days later he won the IC4A championships over the same distance. He was then elected to the All-America Athletic Team . Towards the end of the year he took second place in the cross-country race of the IC4A championships and was appointed captain of the cross-country team at his university. 1911 was an equally successful year for Berna. He again won the IC4A championships over 2 miles, improving his own American record for amateurs.

In May 1912 Tell Berna competed in a comparison competition at his university on his special course over 2 miles and again improved his own American record for amateurs to 9: 17.8 min, which was to last for the next 20 years. For the third year in a row he was then elected to the All-America Athletic Team . In June, he took part in one of two 5000-meter runs that served as the eliminations, now known as the US Trials , for participation in the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm . He won the run with 15: 08.4 minutes and qualified for the games without any problems.

At the Olympic Games in Stockholm in 1912, five prelims were held over 5000 meters. Berna had to do with the later Olympic champion Hannes Kolehmainen in his preliminary run . With a third place he qualified for the final. Here, however, Berna could not convince at any time and took 5th place at the finish.

Two days later, Tell Berna took part in the heats in the 3,000-meter team run. The winning team qualified for the final in three preliminary runs. A team consisted of 5 runners who all started together. The ranking of the best 3 runners on a team was based on the rankings (1st place = 1 point; 2nd place = 2 points etc.). The team with the lowest number of places (points) was the winner. Berna and his team met the strong runners from Finland, of whom Hannes Kolehmainen won the preliminary run with 8: 36.8 minutes, the first world record recognized by the IAAF on this running course. Nevertheless, the runners from the USA won, leaving all other Finnish runners behind. Berna took 3rd place. In the final on the following day, Berna surpassed herself and crossed the finish line at the same time as the Swede Thorild Olsson, ahead of all the other runners. Only a few centimeters ahead brought him the race victory and the team from the USA the Olympic victory.

Tell Berna crossed the finish line first in the team race, followed by Swede Olsson, and Taber came third

The victorious US team with Kiviat, Taber, Scott, Berna and Bonhag (from left to right)

Berna also took part in the two cross-country competitions in Stockholm. In the individual and in the team run, however, he gave up the race on the way. In the team run this was particularly annoying because three runners from a team were included in the ranking, but only two of the five US runners had reached the finish.

In 1912 graduated Tell Berna at Cornell University for a mechanical engineer and ended his sports career. He initially worked as an engineer in machine tool construction . In 1937 he became general secretary and in 1950 general director of the National Machine Tools Builders' Association . During the Second World War he was the head of the War Production Board , a committee that was concerned with improving the production of war materials. He wrote several articles for magazines, such as Harper's Magazine and American Affairs , in which he had primarily dealt with the effects of the war on the American engineering industry.

For his sporting success, Tell Berna was called to various halls of fame , to the Cornell Big Red Hall of Fame in 1979 and to the USA Track and Field Niagara Association Hall of Fame in 2004 .

The placements at the Olympic Games for Tell Berna:

• V. Olympic Games 1912, Stockholm
  • 3000 m team - GOLD to USA (silver to SWE , bronze to GBR )
  • 5000 m - fifth without timing (gold to Hannes Kolehmainen , FIN )
  • Cross-country run, individual - task in the race
  • Cross-country running, team - task in the race

Web links

• Tell Berna in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )