Introduction to the life and times of Donovan Bailey
A former sprinter from Canada is named Donovan Bailey. He won agold medal at the Olympics and set a record for the fastest 100-meter sprint time in Canada. He broke the 100-meter time recordwith a time of 9.84 seconds plus 0.7 meters per second during the
Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games. Bailey was known for his extraordinary speed, most notably his championship run in the 1996 Olympics at27.07 mph (12.10 m/s). In the indoor 50m dash, he also established a world record in Reno, Nevada, in 1996, clocking in at 5.56.
seconds. His greatest successes included winning two gold medals sat the Olympics, one in the 100-meter sprint and the other in the 4 x100-meter relay, both in 1996: one gold and one silver medal in the100-meter sprint, respectively, in 1995 and 1997.
Attributes of Donovan Bailey
- Birthday: December 16, 1967 (Sagittarius)
- Born In: Manchester, Jamaica
- Canadian Celebrities Born In December
- Age: 55 Years, 55 Year Old Males
- Family:
- Spouse/Ex-: Michelle Mullin
- Father: George Bailey
- Mother: Daisy
- Children: Adrienna
- Born Country: Canada
- Athletes Canadian Men
- Height: 6’1′(185cm)
Childhood and Early Life
- He became born on December sixteen, 1967, in Manchester, Jamaica, to George Bailey and his spouse Daisy as certainly considered one among their 5 sons. He might awaken with the primary mild of the day and deal with the pigs, chickens and
goats of his own circle of relatives after which attend faculty. - In 1981 he immigrated to Canada to stay together along with his father in Oakville, a suburban metropolis in Southern Ontario. There he joined the `Queen Elizabeth Park High School` and have become part of the music crew of the faculty.
- When he becomes sixteen, he participated in a 100m dash, which he finished in 10.65s. However, he becomes greater of a basketball fanatic than a sprinter.
- After finishing excessive faculty training, he attended `Sheridan College`, Oakville and studied economics. In university he participated within side the basketball crew gambling ahead for one season.
Career
- He entered a parchment in business administration following which he ventured in marketing and investment consulting business. He also ran an import-import apparel business. He bought his own house in Oakville at 22 times of age and possessed a Porsche 911convertible.
- Still among all these he always harbored his love for sports that saw him entering s
print races sometimes. Gradationally he started to train himself seriously in the sports and in 1991he started taking part in different 100m sprints as a part-timekeeper. That time he surfaced winner of the 60m gusto at the Ontario inner crowns. - In August 1991 he bagged a tableware order in 4 × 100 meters relay in the Pan American Games held at Havana, Cuba.
- In 1993, he was welcomed to the Canadian team at the World Championships, when he met the soon-to-be American track and field coach Dan Pfaff. Beginning to
train with Pfaff, Bailey gradually improved his technique and running manners, which helped him start faster and maintain a steady pace throughout the entire race. - Bailey set up the 100-meter sprint as a 20-meter start, 50-meter acceleration, and a 30-meter recovery.
- Although his first gold came with the 4 × 100 m relay event at the 1994 Commonwealth Games at Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, his gradual improvement as a sprinter saw him sealing the eighth position in world ranking in
100m dash by the turn of 1994. - In spring of 1995, for the first time he achieved sub-10stiming in 100m. During the Canadian track and field championships held in July that year he set a Canadian
record of 9.91 sec in 100m. - His first major gold medal came in 1995 with the 5th World Championships in Athletics held in Gothenburg, Sweden, winning him the 100m title. His further accomplishment in the championship was a gold medal in the men’s 4 × 100m relay that year.
- In 1996 he succeeded in breaking the indoor 50m world record by setting his own new record of 5.56 seconds in a competition held In Reno, Nevada, US. Although this timing of Bailey was equaled in 1999 by American former track and field sprinter Maurice Greene, the run by the latter was not ratified as a world record.
- Bailey triumphed in both the 100m and 4 × 100 m relay events at the 1996 Olympic Games held at Atlanta, Georgia, US, thus winning two gold medals in Olympics that year. Not only had he won the 100m title in Olympics that year but also set the new world record of 9.84s +0.7m/s wind in 100 m dash. This record was later surpassed by a new world record of 9.79 s (+0.1 m/s wind) in 1999 by Maurice Greene.
- In 1997 he captured another World Championships title winning gold medal along with the Canadian relay team in the 4 × 100 m relay event held at Athens, Greece. However, he finished second at the 100m dash in the World Championships that year and had to remain content with a silver medal, while Greene outshined as the winner.
- He clinched his next major win in May 1997 in the ‘SkyDome’ stadium in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in a one-to-one 150 m sprint against American sprinter Michael Johnson in a bid to ascertain who among the two was the world’s fastest man. Earlier that year Johnson publicized himself as ‘the world’s fastest man’ while performing in TV promotions. Bailey won the race in 14.99 seconds and earned $1.5 million, the highest prize in the history of athletics, while Johnson grasped his thigh in pain.
- Bailey met with a career-ending injury in September 1998when he ruptured his Achilles tendon in the middle of a basketball game he was playing with friends. He struggled to walk after a surgery of the tendon.
- However, overcoming all odds, he succeeded in making a comeback and won a silver medal in 4 × 100 m relay of the1999 Pan American Games, at Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
- He regained the numerous uno position as a sprinter in Canada by 2000, however failed to win any international title.
- He took retirement in 2001.
- He founded the ‘Donovan Bailey Foundation’ in 2002 to help amateur athletes in Canada.
- In 2003 Bailey along with other athletes and sports executives established the DBX Sport Management, a company that aids amateur athletes. He also opened a sport injury clinic in Oakville, Ontario. During the 2008 Summer Olympics, he served CBC Television as a track commentator.
Personal Life and Legacy
- In 2004 he married British born Realtor Michelle Mullin, his girlfriend of 12 years, in the Half Moon Hotel, Montego Bay, Jamaica. He presently lives with Michelle and daughter Adrienna in his home in Oakville, Ontario.
