Great Track ---- Always Joyful

[DoubleRBar]

Happy birthday today (Wednesday) to two Olympic champions with a total age today of 133 years.

Both of these athletes have relatives that also won Olympic track & field gold medals.

Our birthday athletes were born approximately 882 miles (1,419 kms) from each other.

No hurdles were involved in their Olympic medals.

I will call these two champions Athlete "G" and Athlete "W".

Athlete "G" was nine years old when "W" was born.

"W" was not the favorite going into the Olympic Games, but won the gold medal in the same country in which this individual was born.

"G" won the Olympic gold medal with a world record and won in a country which no longer exists.

Time to name our two Olympic champions with birthdays on this third Wednesday of 2022.

[Olli]

Hmm, no longer exists...

[noone]

Al Joyner?

[DoubleRBar]

Happy 62nd birthday today to Al Joyner. Good work, noone.

Al Joyner won the triple jump at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games with his first round jump of 17.26 (56' 7 1/2).

Born in Illinois, Al Joyner's sister (Jackie) won an Olympic silver medal in the heptathlon on the same day that Al won that gold medal.

Thank you, noone and Olli.

[Tuariki]

Canada, USA, South Korea, and Spain still exist.
USSR and West Germany don't.
As G and W are from the USA I am guessing G is an American who won in 1972

And perhaps Gerald Tinker

[DoubleRBar]

Happy 71st birthday today to Gerald Tinker. Very well done, Tuariki.

Gerald Tinker ran the third leg on the U.S. four by 100 relay team that won the gold medal at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. The winning time of 38.19 was a world record. Larry Black ran the first leg on that relay in West Germany and was (still is) a cousin of Gerald Tinker. Tinker was born in Florida.

Thank you Tuariki.

[noone]

Happy 62nd birthday today to Al Joyner. Good work, noone.

I specialize in picking the low-hanging fruit

[Olli]

Canada, USA, South Korea, and Spain still exist.
USSR and West Germany don't.
As G and W are from the USA I am guessing G is an American who won in 1972

And perhaps Gerald Tinker

The Munich Olympics were in the Federal Republic of Germany, which is alive and well. The clue was misleading.

[Trickstat]

The Munich Olympics were in the Federal Republic of Germany, which is alive and well. The clue was misleading.

Yes, strictly speaking, what Brits and Americans used to call "West Germany" and the current Germany are the same country, it just has some extra land!

[Olli]

Yeah, you don't call the USA a new country every time a new state joins it.

[DoubleRBar]

Good point.

[cigar95]

Is it still formally called the FRG?

[bambam1729]

Is it still formally called the FRG?

Federal Republic of Germany is the formal name of the country, but it goes by Germany, and the IOC abbreviation is now GER, not FRG

[cigar95]

Federal Republic of Germany is the formal name of the country, but it goes by Germany, and the IOC abbreviation is now GER, not FRG

That would confirm that the two countries didn't merge to form a third country, but rather the DDR became a part of the BRD. (The German abbreviations still stick in my head. Probably a remnant of Stuttgart in '86.)