Tom Courtney

Tom Courtney (actually Thomas William Courtney, born August 17, 1933, Newark, New Jersey ) is a former American track and field athlete and Olympic champion.

Courtney came in 1955 as a student at Fordham University to national prominence by winning over 880 yards in the NCAA Championships. He also won the 1956 AAU Championships over 400 meters and 1957 and 1958 over 880 yards. In 1957 he presented this set a new world record with a time of 1:46,8 minutes.

At the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956 he won the gold medal in the 800 -meter run, before the Briton Derek Johnson ( silver) and the Norwegian Audun Boysen ( Bronze) as well as the team gold medal in the 4 x 400 - meter relay, along with his teammates Charles Jenkins, Lou Jones and Jesse Mashburn, before the teams from Australia (Silver) and the UK ( bronze).

In his 800 - meter race, he delivered a dramatic duel with the British Derek Johnson. Up to 40 meters in front of the goal led Johnson. Nevertheless, Courtney won by a sensational sprint at 0.13 seconds ahead. After crossing the finish line, he collapsed. The medal ceremony was suspended for one hour, in which the two recovered. The next day he was back, this time in the 4 x 400 - meter relay. He later wrote for this run:

It was a new kind of agony for me. My head exploding thing, my stomach ripping and even the tips of my fingers ached. The only thing i could think that, ' If I live, I will never run again. ( It was a new kind of unbearable pain exploded for me My head, my stomach was torn apart, even the tips of my fingers ached all I could think was: .. . If I survive, I'll never walk again )