Who is the luckiest athlete to win Oly Gold?

Since a fair number of people have been defending some of the 'worst' athlete picks for Oly Gold, so to settle it, or bring some other name athletes into the discussion, how about stating who you think are the luckiest athletes (or just athlete) to win Gold - in Track and Field, that is. (Of course, nothing is for sure in track, but it's fun to speculate on 'probables')

Peter Rono was very lucky - Cram was hurt, Bile was hurt, Elliot was hurt, Aouita was hurt, the Brits didn't send Coe, who then showed himself to be in sub 3:30 shape I believe. In fact, speaking of Kenyans, a lot of guys from 68 were lucky, like Kip Keino.

Hasley Crawford also comes to mind, with Steve Williams out. Anders Garderud was lucky in 76 - Baumgartle tripped.

Re: Who is the luckiest athlete to win Oly Gold?

Al Oerter?

[stevehj197]

Re: Who is the luckiest athlete to win Oly Gold?

2 comments:
Oerter LUCKY ??!! Hardly.

Obvious "lucky" winner is Germany in 1960 mens 400 relay when Norton messed up the pass from Budd, going out too fast and running out of the zone... DQ for US, gold medal for Germany.

Re: Who is the luckiest athlete to win Oly Gold?

How many times do I have to say it???

AMOS BIWOTT

Re: Who is the luckiest athlete to win Oly Gold?

Easy! The '92 100h gold medalist from Greece. The only thing that would be luckier than seing the leader ahead of you by 6 meters falling over the final hurdle would be me spelling her name correctly without looking it up. Pe tu li du.

[JRM]

Re: Who is the luckiest athlete to win Oly Gold?

Carl Lewis, 1988 Olympics.

Re: Who is the luckiest athlete to win Oly Gold?

>Easy! The '92 100h gold medalist from Greece.
>The only thing that would be luckier than seing
>the leader ahead of you by 6 meters falling over
>the final hurdle would be me spelling her name
>correctly without looking it up. Pe tu li du.

OK, I guess I need to defend the Greeks again. It is 100m hurdles. 100 meters with HURDLES. That's part of the race, to jump over the hurdles. If you can not do it, you can't win. Not to take anything away from the greatness of Ms Devers, but she was supposed to clear all hurdles. So I don't think that particular day she was exactly the best. Winning the lotto is luck. Knocking down the hurdles is not. So, I wouldn't say that it was pure luck that gave Ms Patoulidou the gold medal. But again, I am Greek so I am probably not thinking very clear. It will be nice if we can see Ms Patoulidou and Ms Devers meet next year in Athens (off track; Voula is very much involved in the organizing of the Olympics next year). Cheers all.

[waynehobley]

Re: Who is the luckiest athlete to win Oly Gold?

I understand your defending of "the greeks" but he was right. She was lucky that Gail hit the hurdle other wise she would have been the Champion and from the time the greek woman had she would have had the world record. But thats just my opinion.

[Per Andersen]

Re: Who is the luckiest athlete to win Oly Gold?

Wolfgang Nordwig was very lucky in 1972 when the Iaaf on the day before the qualification decided that Bob Seagren and the majority of the other vaulters could not use their poles and they had to use poles they had never seen before.

Also How about Dainis Kula in the 1980 Javelin when he opened with 3 fouls and should have been out of the competition. However, the russkies decided there was a mark and measured even if the rest of the world saw the jav land tail first.

Re: Who is the luckiest athlete to win Oly Gold?

lefteris, For the record, I am not anti-greek. I would rank the emotion and joy of pulling the upset displayed by Patoulidou right up there with anyone. I would consider whoever won that race lucky. Luck to me is when something out of the ordinary happens in which the winner had no control. The lead was insurmountable without incident of some sort. I too think like you, the responsibility to clear all hurdles, stay on your feet, make baton exchanges, etc. are all part of the event. I make no excuses for those who don't complete the basics. I would never say Patoulidou didn't deserve to win, was not a true champion, or even that she wasn't the best on that day, but I would say luck was on her side.

Re: Who is the luckiest athlete to win Oly Gold?

>How many times do I have to say it??? AMOS BIWOTT<<

You can say it as many times as you'd like. There's no way anyone is going to believe it. He was clearly the best steeplechaser in the world at the time of the Games.

[pickle47]

Re: Who is the luckiest athlete to win Oly Gold?

You forgot a couple of words. At altitude.

Re: Who is the luckiest athlete to win Oly Gold?

>lefteris, For the record, I am not anti-greek.
>I would rank the emotion and joy of pulling the
>upset displayed by Patoulidou right up there
>with anyone. I would consider whoever won that
>race lucky. Luck to me is when something out of
>the ordinary happens in which the winner had no
>control. The lead was insurmountable without
>incident of some sort. I too think like you,
>the responsibility to clear all hurdles, stay on
>your feet, make baton exchanges, etc. are all
>part of the event. I make no excuses for those
>who don't complete the basics. I would never
>say Patoulidou didn't deserve to win, was not a
>true champion, or even that she wasn't the best
>on that day, but I would say luck was on her
>side.

Nicely said, thanks. I did not mean to indicate that you were anti-Greek; my apologies. And, yes I guess there was some type of intervention from above. Zeus was looking down that day.

Re: Who is the luckiest athlete to win Oly Gold?

>How many times do I have to say it??? AMOS BIWOTT<<

"You can say it as many times as you'd like. There's no way anyone is going to believe it. He was clearly the best steeplechaser in the world at the time of the Games."

Oh my God!! I nearly choked from laughing so hard! You're killing me, man!

OK: here are the facts behind the guy you name as "clearly the best steeplechaser in the world at the time of the Games."

Biwott ran a total of 6 steeplechase races in 1968: 3 in Kenya in August and 3 in Mexico City in October. He didn't run in Europe, or--obviously--face ANYBODY at sea level, ANYWHERE. His best time of 8:44.8 (in a losing effort to Ben Kogo) was 74th on the world list that year. He won at Mexico City because of the altitude (repeat BECAUSE OF THE ALTITUDE) and a whole truck load of LUCK. In 1969, his best was 8:39.8 for 40th on the world list. The guy is not exactly a timeless legend.

Olympic winners are the best on that particular day, given ALL the surrounding conditions and circumstances. That may not have anything at all to do with being the best athlete.

Re: Who is the luckiest athlete to win Oly Gold?

I'd say several of the winners in 1984 should feel pretty lucky (not having the Eastern Bloc teams around might have helped JUST a bit).