Étienne Desmarteau

Étienne DesMarteau ( born February 4, 1873 in Boucherville, Quebec, † October 29, 1905 in Montreal ) was a Canadian athlete.

DesMarteau won the 1902 Championship of the U.S. Amateur Athletic Union (AAU ) in weight before throwing the hammer thrower John Flanagan. Flanagan and DesMarteau were the two favorites for the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis, where the weight throwing for the first time on the program.

However, it was not so easy for DesMarteau, ever to go to St. Louis. As a member of the Police Corps of Montreal, he applied for participation in the Olympic Games leave which was not granted. He then anyway, but lost his job therefore.

In St. Louis DesMarteau won the weight distance casting with a width of 10.46 m in front of John Flanagan, who came to 10.16 m. The weight throwing was only in 1904 and 1920 held in Antwerp as an Olympic discipline in 1920 won Pat McDonald. DesMarteau after runner George Orton was the second Canadian Olympic champion in athletics. 1905 DesMarteau died of typhus.

Before the 1976 Olympic Games, the arena Étienne DesMarteau was inaugurated in Montreal, in the Olympic tournament was played in basketball.