Hey, marknhj... what do you know about Michael Campbell?

[jhc68]

I've seen photos of Michael Campbell that claim to be practice clearances of 7' 5" straddling way back when the WR was Brumel's 7' 5 3/4". Also, claims that he was the UK national record holder, but the best documented marks I've found for him are in the 6' 8" to 6' 10" range.

Do you know anything about him? His website paints a larger than life renaissance man sort of image of him: engineer, author, adventurer, photographer and as for athletics:

"His full life also included more than a normal involvement in athletics. He was an Olympic athlete, holder of the British record for High Jump, and travelled all over Europe representing his country in international meets for 14 years. He was proclaimed one of the best cricketers of his generation and represented England while still at school. While a student he represented British Universities in cricket, tennis, golf, table tennis, squash, and track and field athletics as well as being the university chess champion."

Is this story one to be believed?

[gh]

Was not an Olympian.

His bio reminds me of a famous poseur of 30-odd years ago. West Indian, think his name was Donald Weekes. Even Jack Bauer wouldn't have been able to handle him.

[Conor Dary]

Pretty funny. The guy is supposedly going to all the grand prix meets, and fitting a few Test cricket matches in between. He probably also scored the winning goal in the World Cup.

Some people sure are delusional.

By the way, did you see the photos of all my gold medals?

[marknhj]

Easy answer - I've never heard of him. A quick look in my records shows an indoor mark of 2.03m (6' 8") in 1969.

Do you have a link to the claim of 7' 5"? A barefaced lie, unless he meant pole vaulting. He wasn't an Olympian and I'd be pretty surprised if he represented GB in athletics for 14 years...

[eldrick]

Re: Hey, marknhj... what do you know about Michael Campbell?

...Is this story one to be believed?

his fending off tiger to win the USOpen makes all those accomplishments pale into insignificance

[kuha]

"Using new state of the art digital technology, Campbell puts his subjects wherever they’d like to be."

He's now a photographer. The above may be a key sentence from his webpage: he appears to have applied a virtual form of "digital reconstruction" or enhancement to his own biography....

[jhc68]

Campbell's photos that purport to be practice jumps at seven-four and seven-five are on a French jump site: http://jump.and.feel.free.fr that is sometimes fussy to load.

Click on the photo options on the homepage and scroll down to find Campbell's name and some photo icons with claimed hts. in text next to them. (For some reason a pic that appears to be Brumel is also included in this section.) The same photos used to be posted on Joe Faust's now defunct high jump page with assertions in English that they represented practice tries at the same hts.

[marknhj]

Campbell's photos that purport to be practice jumps at seven-four and seven-five are on a French jump site: http://jump.and.feel.free.fr that is sometimes fussy to load.

Click on the photo options on the homepage and scroll down to find Campbell's name and some photo icons with claimed hts. in text next to them. (For some reason a pic that appears to be Brumel is also included in this section.) The same photos used to be posted on Joe Faust's now defunct high jump page with assertions in English that they represented practice tries at the same hts.

They're blatant fakes. Look at the upright on the third jump. That bar is very high but the grove in the upright only appears in the top section. In the first one the roller doesn't look real and the spectator with the camera must be a midget...

I'm tempted to email him and ask for an explanation...

[Daisy]

They're blatant fakes. Look at the upright on the third jump. That bar is very high but the grove in the upright only appears in the top section. In the first one the roller doesn't look real and the spectator with the camera must be a midget...

I'm tempted to email him and ask for an explanation...

Given he claims expertise in faking photographs we should not be too surprised. That he is good at doctoring photos may well be his only legitimate claim.

Did anyone considerhe might not even be British? Faking his accent to impress his San Diego clientele. I'm surprised he does not claim to be Lord Snowdon.

[dukehjsteve]

We have unmasked a fair number of "phonies" via this Board in the last few years, some even more blatant than this one. It would be "interesting" to hear his side, if he has one.

[Daisy]

Interestingly there is a slightly different version here:
http://web.mac.com/michaelcampbellphoto/Site/Bio.html

"Michael also loved sports and played cricket for the England under 21 team at school and for British Universities, while at Leicester University he became the British high jump champion and record holder. He was captain of the British Team in the World Student Games."

Now this could be interpreted (generously) as he won the British Universities with a record jump. That is not out of the question as British universities were and probably still are a pretty low standard (definitely not comparable to NCAA). Maybe this story has just morphed as the years of telling go by.

World student games to Olympics, BUSF champion to British champion etc.

[jhc68]

Yeah, Campbell seems to have two websites with significantly different athletic resumes on each one: http://web.mac.com/michaelcampbellphoto/Site/Bio.html

and

http://michaelcampbellphotographics.com ... pbell.html

To be fair, maybe the more fantastic one was done for him by some nimrod who did not know the difference between a league record and a national record. And I have no idea who posted the claims regarding the jump photos on the two websites. It might be interesting to hear his first hand accounts.

As for the photos, they do seem odd to my untrained eye. Neither has a view of the bottom of the standards and the guy in the background does seem very far away and very far below! If the second photo is actually a bar set at 7'5" then Campbell is really flying... but - like marknhj - I couldn't find any competition results within a foot of the apparent ht. he is achieving in the photo.

Stranger things have happened, I guess, but I can't think of what exactly it might be.

[jhc68]

Zoom in on the standard in the first photo, next to the guy in the background. There are two places where both the standard and the background scene get very distorted and blurry. If I were cynical I'd think the photo had been doctored.

[mrbowie]

This is the kind of guy that spots UFOs.

[Jon]

Interestingly there is a slightly different version here:
http://web.mac.com/michaelcampbellphoto/Site/Bio.html

"Michael also loved sports and played cricket for the England under 21 team at school and for British Universities, while at Leicester University he became the British high jump champion and record holder. He was captain of the British Team in the World Student Games."

Now this could be interpreted (generously) as he won the British Universities with a record jump. That is not out of the question as British universities were and probably still are a pretty low standard (definitely not comparable to NCAA). Maybe this story has just morphed as the years of telling go by.

World student games to Olympics, BUSF champion to British champion etc.

According to GBR Athletics, Campbell won the BUSA title three years on the trot from 1964-1966:
http://www.gbrathletics.com/bc/busa.htm
Seeing as the BUSA champs only started in 1963, it wasn't really all that difficult to 'break' the competition record. He probably competed internationally for some sort of British Universities team, but it seem there aren't any sources to back his claim of him breaking national records and/or being an Olympian.