First To Win Gold

[DoubleRBar]

Happy 52nd birthday today (Friday) to an Olympic champion who competed in the same event at three different Olympic Games.

This athlete competed in two different events at those Games.

Our birthday person won a gold medal at the World Indoor Championships.

You might already know that this champion was the first from a certain country to win an Olympic gold medal.

Sixteen years ago, this individual was married.

Who is this Olympic champion with a birthday on this second Friday of October?

[noone]

Some of the clues, including the fact that hurdles are not excluded, point to Deon Hemmings, but she wasn't the first Jamaican to win gold

[DoubleRBar]

Happy birthday today to Deon Hemmings and good work, noone. Deon Hemmngs was indeed the first Jamaican woman to win an Olympic gold medal. She was seventh in the 400 hurdles in Barcelona (1992) and she won the gold medal in Atlanta (1996) at 52.86 (fifth fastest time ever). She also anchored (49.34) the fourth place four by 400 relay team in Atlanta. Hemmings took the Olympic silver medal (53.45) in Sydney (2000) and then ran the third leg on the silver medal four by 400 Jamaican relay team.

I purposely left out the word "woman" to see if anyone would come up with the fact that it was a woman. Good job, noone.

[noone]

Am I right when I assume Hemmings' gold was only the second one that was actually won by Jamaica, after Don Quarrie in Montreal? All earlier Jamaicans competed under the "West Indies" banner, I think.

[gh]

Am I right when I assume Hemmings' gold was only the second one that was actually won by Jamaica, after Don Quarrie in Montreal? All earlier Jamaicans competed under the "West Indies" banner, I think.

West Indies only existed as a political entity between 1958 and 1962, so only Rome had a WI team. Rhoden, Wint, McKenley, et al, all competed for Jamaica

[bambam1729]

West Indies only existed as a political entity between 1958 and 1962, so only Rome had a WI team. Rhoden, Wint, McKenley, et al, all competed for Jamaica

Here is what we have on Olympedia about the West Indies Federation:


A short-lived nation (existing between 1958 and 1962), the West Indies Federation consisted of 12 present-day nations and territories: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago and Turks and Caicos Islands.

The West Indies Olympic Association was formed on 29 July 1958 at a meeting in London as a successor of the already existing National Olympic Committees of Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. This newly constituted organization was recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in the same year and sent a team to the 1960 Olympics. The Rome organizing committee called the “nation” the Antilles, a term that has, unfortunately, been often copied in many books. The West Indies team consisted of 13 athletes in 1960, two from Barbados, four from Trinidad, and seven from Jamaica, who competed in track & field athletics, cycling, sailing, shooting, and weightlifting. The team won two bronze medals, one by Jamaican George Kerr, and one by the 4×400 metres relay team, which consisted of three Jamaicans and one Barbadian.

After the dissolution of the Federation in 1962 the West Indies Olympic Association was made defunct as well and the Olympic Committees of Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago became active again.

[Tuariki]

I guess the West Indies now just exists for cricket