Tom Courtney

Tom Courtney, 1956

Tom Courtney (actually Thomas William Courtney ; born August 17, 1933 in Newark , New Jersey ) is a former American athlete and Olympic champion .

Courtney came to national prominence in 1955 as a student at Fordham University by winning 880 yards at the NCAA championships. He also won the AAU championships over 400 meters in 1956 and in 1957 and 1958 over 880 yards. In 1957 he set a new world record with a time of 1: 46.8 minutes.

In the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne , he won the gold medal in the 800-meter race , the Brit Derek Johnson (silver) and the Norwegian Audun Boysen (Bronze) and the team gold medal in the 4 x 400 meters relay , together with his teammates Charles Jenkins , Lou Jones and Jesse Mashburn , ahead of the teams from Australia (silver) and the United Kingdom (bronze).

In his 800-meter run, he fought a dramatic duel with the British Derek Johnson. Johnson led up to 40 meters from the goal. Nevertheless, Courtney won with a sensational sprint with a lead of 13 hundredths of a second. After crossing the finish line, it collapsed. The medal ceremony was suspended for an hour while the two recovered. The next day he ran again, this time in the 4 x 400 meter relay. He later wrote about this run:

It was a new kind of agony for me. My head was exploding, my stomach ripping and even the tips of my fingers ached. The only thing I could think was, 'If I live, I will never run again. (It was a new kind of excruciating pain for me. My head exploded, my stomach was torn apart, even the tips of my fingers ached. All I could think about was, if I survive, I'll never run again.)

Web links

• Tom Courtney in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )