Manuel Plaza

Jesús Manuel Plaza Reyes ( * March 17, 1900; † February 9, 1969 ) was a Chilean marathon runner and Olympic silver medalist.

Manuel Plaza won the silver and bronze medals on the 10,000 or the 5,000 - meter course at the IAAF Championships South America 1920.

He was sixth in 2:52:54 in 1924 in the marathon at the Olympic Games. At the games in Amsterdam in 1928, he ran long in the field, until he could a few kilometers before the finish at the starting for France, Algerians Boughera El- Ouafi overtake the top. With 2:33:23 he was only 26 seconds behind the El- Ouafi and won the silver medal.

Manuel Plaza thus won the first Olympic medal for Chile at all. He is next to the javelin Marlene Ahrens, who won silver in 1956, Chile's only medalist in the history of Olympic track and field. The Plaza narrowly missed first gold medal for Chile won in 2004 in a double tennis players Nicolás Massu and Fernando Gonzalez.