Al Oerter


Alfred Oerter Jr. was an American athlete and a four-time Olympic Champion in the discus throw. He was the first athlete to win a gold medal in the same individual event in four consecutive Olympic Games. Oerter is an inductee of the IAAF Hall of Fame.

Olympic athlete

Oerter was born in 1936 in Astoria, Queens, New York City and grew up in New Hyde Park; he attended Sewanhaka High School in Floral Park. He began his track and field career at the age of 15 when a discus landed at his feet and he threw it back past the crowd of throwers. Oerter continued throwing and eventually earned a scholarship to the University of Kansas in 1954 where he became a member of Delta Tau Delta fraternity. A large man at 6' 4" and 280 pounds, Oerter was a natural thrower. Competing for Kansas, he became the NCAA discus champion in 1957; he successfully defended his title the following year.
Oerter began his Olympic career at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. He was not considered the favorite but he felt a rush during the competition and he unleashed a throw of —which, at the time, was a career best. The throw was good enough to win the competition by more than.
In 1957, it seemed that Oerter's career would be over at the age of 20 when he was nearly killed in an automobile accident. He recovered in time to compete at the 1960 Summer Olympics at Rome, where he was the slight favorite over teammate Rink Babka, who was the world record holder.
Babka was in the lead for the first four of the six rounds. He gave Oerter advice before his fifth throw; Oerter threw his discus, setting an Olympic record. Babka settled for the silver medal when he was not able to beat Oerter's throw.
During the early 1960s, Oerter continued to have success and set his first world record in 1962. In the process, he was the first to break 200 feet in the discus. He was considered a heavy favorite to win a third gold medal at Tokyo in 1964.
Oerter was hampered by injuries before the Games began. He was bothered by a neck injury that required him to wear a neck brace, and a week before the start of the competition he tore cartilage in his ribs. Oerter was competing in great pain, but he set a new Olympic standard and won a third Olympic gold medal despite not being able to take his last throw due to the pain from his ribs. He'd told the doctors, "These are the Olympics. You die for them".
Oerter returned to the Olympics in 1968 at Mexico City, however teammate Jay Silvester was cast as the favorite. Many felt Oerter, who was then 32, could not win the event because he had never thrown as far as Silvester did on his average throws. At the Olympics, however, Oerter hurled another Olympic record throw of on his third throw. His record held and he became the first track and field athlete to win gold medals in four consecutive Olympic Games. This accomplishment would be equaled many years later by fellow Americans Carl Lewis and swimmer Michael Phelps.
Oerter retired from athletics after the 1968 Olympics. He later eyed a comeback and took anabolic steroids in 1976 under medical supervision in order to put on muscle mass. However, he stopped the course as this affected his blood pressure and failed to give much improvement on the field. After this he advised athletes to avoid such drugs and focus on training and technique instead. He was critical of the increase of drug use and the subsequent testing in track and field, stating that it had destroyed the culture of athlete camaraderie and that the banning of athletes such as Ben Plucknett was merely scapegoating by international officials.
Oerter did make an attempt to qualify for the American team in 1980 but finished fourth. He nonetheless set his overall personal record of that year at the age of 43. Dr. Gideon Ariel, a former Olympic shot putter himself for Israel, had developed a business of biomechanical services, and Oerter after working with Ariel—at age 43—threw a discus 27 feet farther than his best gold medal performance.
When filming for a TV segment, he unofficially threw about, which would have set a still-standing world record. In later years, Oerter carried the Olympic flag for the 1984 Summer Olympics, then carried Olympic flame into the stadium for the 1996 Olympic Games.

Later life, death and Art of the Olympians

Oerter had struggled with high blood pressure his entire life, and in the 2000s, he became terminally ill with cardiovascular disease. On March 13, 2003, Oerter was briefly clinically dead; a change of blood pressure medications caused a fluid build-up around his heart.
Oerter was inducted into the Suffolk Sports Hall of Fame on Long Island in the Track & Field Category with the Class of 1990. In 2005, Oerter was inducted into the Nassau County Sports Hall of Fame.
As a child, Oerter had frequently traveled to his grandparents' home in Manhattan and admired their art collection. As a retired athlete, Oerter became an abstract painter. Oerter enjoyed the freedom of abstract art, and thus decided against formal schooling for his art, as he thought it might stifle his creativity. Part of Oerter's work was his "Impact" series of paintings. For these works, Oerter would lay a puddle of a paint on a tarp, and fling a discus into it to create splashing lines on a canvas positioned in front of the tarp. If the discus landed painted-face up, Oerter would sign it and give it to whoever purchased the painting.
In 2006 he founded the Art of the Olympians organization and held an Olympian Art exhibition in his home town of Fort Myers. This first show included artworks and sculptures from 14 Olympians, including Florence Griffith Joyner, Roald Bradstock, Shane Gould, Cameron Myler, Rink Babka and Larry Young. Later that year the exhibit traveled to New York City for shows at the United Nations, the New York Athletic Club and then at the National Arts Club. Art of the Olympians also had their work on display on the giant Panasonic Astro-Vision screen in Times Square for the entire month November 2006. Oerter and other Olympian artists were also featured on the CBS Morning Show to discuss their New York Tour.
In mid-2007, Art of the Olympians was given the rights to use the word Olympian by the United States Olympic Committee —an act protected by Congress. On August 1, 2007 Art of the Olympians was awarded a 501 status.
As Oerter's heart condition progressed, he was advised by cardiologists he would require a heart transplant. Oerter dismissed the suggestion. "I've had an interesting life," he said, "and I'm going out with what I have." Oerter died on October 1, 2007, of heart failure in Fort Myers, Florida at the age of 71. He was survived by his wife and two daughters.
On March 7, 2009, the Al Oerter Recreation Center, operated by New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, opened in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Flushing, Queens.
Art of the Olympians continued to grow 10 years after their first exhibition. The organization now has 50 on its roster including two posthumous members: Al Oerter and Florence Griffith-Joyner. Over the past decade Art of the Olympians artists and their artwork have been seen on numerous TV networks including CBS, NBC, BBC, CNN, PBS, the USA Network and UK's Channel Four and had Exhibitions at three Olympic and Paralympic Games: Beijing 2008, Vancouver 2010 and London 2012. And for three and half years, between 2010 and 2013, Art of the Olympians had dozens of group and solo exhibitions at their museum and gallery in Fort Myers, Florida.