Edwin Moses

Edwin Moses (2010)

Edwin Corley Moses ( born August 31, 1955 in Dayton, Ohio ) is a former American track and field athlete. He started in the 400 - meter hurdles and dominated this route in the 1970s and 1980s. He was, among others, twice Olympic champion, twice world champion and placed four times a new world record.

Life

Childhood and education

Raised in Dayton Edwin Moses was born, the second of three sons of the teacher couple Irving and Gladys Moses. His parents were even pursued the sport - Moses ' father had been a football player, his mother had followed the tennis. He came for the first time with the Athletics at the Fairview High School in his hometown in contact. Moses, who had to change the basis of race riots once his school, but was in his youth as insignificant and was ignored by baseball and basketball coaches. He received a comprehensive education, interested in music, art and the natural sciences. After his high school graduation Moses moved to the prestigious Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, where he studied until 1978 physics. Only in the course of his last college year 1975 he became interested in the desire to participate in the Summer Olympic Games in Montreal in 1976. The amateur runners tried to theoretical physics methods to improve his hurdling technique and found in the militant Baptist minister Reverend Lloyd Jackson a first supervisor and consultant.

Dominance in the 1970s and 1980s

For the first time attention of Moses made ​​in March 1976 in the 400 - meter hurdles, as he ran the distance in 46.1 seconds at the Florida Relays in Gainesville. He began with Leroy Walker to train achieved a hitherto never mastered 13er rhythm between hurdles on his special way. Between 1975 and 1987, Moses was the 400 - meter hurdles shape and remained unbeaten in 122 consecutive races over this distance. Early in his career he was often associated by his appearance with dark sunglasses and necklace with the black liberation movement, which, however, he decided rejected. His successes include the Olympic victories in Montreal in 1976 and Los Angeles in 1984, while in Moscow due to the boycott of the Western States could not participate in the Games in 1980. In the inaugural World Championships in Helsinki in 1983, he also won the title on his parade route as four years later in Rome in 1987. Between 1976 and 1983 he improved four times the world record, most recently on 31 August 1983 at the International Evening Sports Festival in Koblenz 47.02 seconds. This time should be only nine years later undercut by Kevin Young. There were also victories at the IAAF World Cup (1977, 1979, 1981 ) and the Goodwill Games (1986).

At the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, he promised himself at the opening ceremony at the Olympic oath. In the same year Moses was chosen by the magazine Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year. Moses ' winning streak tore in June 1987 in a competition in Madrid, when he was in 47.69 seconds his nine years younger team-mates Danny Harris ( 47.56 s ) was defeated and fell at a sports festival in Paris. After his second World Cup victory, he went back a year later as a favorite for the Olympic Games in Seoul. There, Moses clearly dominated flow and semi-finals, before in the final behind his compatriot, Andre Phillips ( 47.19 s ) and the Senegalese Amadou Dia Ba ( 47.23 s ) had to settle in 47.56 seconds with bronze. In the same year he finished his athletic career. Later announced comebacks for 1991 and 2004, he did not come.

Private life and commitment after his runner - career

1982 married Edwin Moses, who also earned her pilot's license, the Berliner Myrella Bordt. From the costume Greek- Ethiopian origin he separated in 1991. After his athletics career, he got into a personal crisis, ordered his life anew and acquired in 1994 at Pepperdine College in Malibu (California ) a Masters in Business Administration. He also tried his hand as a brakeman in the two-man bob. He reached in 1990 a third place at the World Cup in Winterberg.

Later Moses held official positions and was committed to clean sport; he belonged in the National Olympic Committee of the United States at ( USOC ) of the Anti- Doping Commission. By 1996, Moses was also a member of the Athletes' Commission of the IOC. From these offices, however, he withdrew. In 2004, he sought to make a comeback in Athens, but he had to retire because of knee problems. As Chairman of the Laureus World Sports Academy, he annually awards the Laureus World Sports Award.

Awards

• 2006: Award "Athletes with Heart" at the German Sports Press Ball
• 2009: Sports for Peace Award
• 2012: Inclusion in the IAAF Hall of Fame