The Olympic Dictionary 56 EAGAN EDWARD
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The Olympic Dictionary E EAGAN EDWARD PATRICK FRANCIS “EDDIE” (boxing, USA, b. Denver, Colorado, 26/4/1898, d. Rye, New York, 14/6/1967). Two Olympic appearances (1920, 1924) and one gold medal (medium heavyweight 81 kg, 1920). The only athlete to win a gold medal in both the Summer and Winter Games. At Antwerp he beat South African Holdstock, British Franks, and, in the final, the Norwegian Sorsdal, taking the medium heavyweight medal. Four years later he moved up one category, but lost in the first round with British boxer Clifton (who had to withdraw after that very tough match). In 1932 he took part in the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, winning the four-man bobsled with Billy Fiske, Clifford Grey and Jay O’Brien (an unlucky team: all except Eagan died between 1940 and 1941). He grew up in a poor family, and studied at Yale, Harvard and Oxford, becoming a successful lawyer. He lived according to the precepts of Frank Merriwell, a hero of popular novels set in Yale “with the body of Tarzan and the brain of Einstein”. In 1932 he wrote, “I have never smoked tobacco, because Frank doesn’t. I drank my only glass of wine in Europe: Frank never drinks”. EAST GERMANY 409 medals: 153 gold, 129 silver, 127 bronze. Best Olympics: Moscow 1980, with 47 gold, 37 silver and 42 bronze medals. Best sport: track & field, with 38 gold, 36 silver and 35 bronze medals. Most decorated athlete: Kristin Otto (q.v.), swimming, with 6 gold medals (50 freestyle, 100 freestyle, 100 backstroke, 100 butterfly, 4x100 freestyle, 4x100 medley in 1988). The Olympic Committee was formed in 1951, and the following year, at the Helsinki Games, Germany took part with a unified team, though in actual fact the East German athletes refused to participate. From 1956 (one year after the IOC had recognized the GDR), at the 1964 Games, Unified Germany won 118 medals, of which 42 were won by East German athletes (the first gold was won in boxing by Wolfgang Behrendt, bantamweight 54 kg, in 1956). In 1968, at the Mexico City Games, the two Germanys attended separately for the first time, but with the same national anthem and the same flag; the IOC forced the Eastern bloc team to compete with the name East Germany. Between 1972 and 1988 (excepting the 1984 boycott), the Democratic Republic of Germany took part in the Olympics with its own name, anthem and flag. EAST TIMOR (Democratic Republic of East Timor, Asia, capital Dili, area 14.604 km2, population 1.154.776). In 2000, 4 athletes were admitted to the Sydney Games, competing under the abbreviation IOA (Independent Olympic Athletes). The Olympic Committee, formed in 2003 (one year after official independence), received IOC recognition the same year: East Timor was able to send 2 athletes, competing under the country’s own name, to the 2004 Athens Olympics. ECONOMICS and FINANCE See Television. ECUADOR (Republic of Ecuador, South America, capital Quito, area 256.370 km2, population 13,341,199). Medals: one, the gold won by Jefferson Perez for the 20 km walk in 1996. Ecuador had 3 athletes at the Games as early as 1924, but its Olympic Committee was formed only in 1948 and it obtained IOC recognition in 1959. Ecuador returned to the Olympics and from then on it has always taken part. 56 The Olympic Dictionary EDSTRÖM JOHANNES SIGFRID (IOC president, Sweden, b. Morlanda 21/11/1870, d. Stockholm 18/3/1964). In 1921 he was elected a member of the IOC. He became part of its executive board in the same year, and was vice-president from 1937 and in 1946, at the first IOC congress after the war, he was elected president by universal approval. He retired in 1952. EDWARDS JONATHAN (track & field, Great Britain, b. London 10/5/1966). Four Olympic appearances (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000), one gold medal (triple jump, 2000) and one silver (triple jump, 1996). 1996, 0-1-0, 2000 1-0-0. He only started training seriously for the triple jump in 1986, when he was already 20: previously he had played cricket, basketball and rugby. He made his debut at the Games in Seoul in 1988, but he reached only 15.88 and did not qualify for the final. Likewise in Barcelona, 1992, he did not reach the finals, jumping just 15.76. Son of an Anglican priest, up until the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart he did not compete on Sundays, a day to be dedicated to the Lord. “My faith has developed, and I realized, partly through discussing it with other people, that I could make that choice, because I was not committing a sin. I was not going against religion by taking part in a sports activity on Sundays. In addition, I have the duty to express the talent that God gave me, because otherwise I would be limiting myself as a man”. He was the favourite at the 1996 Atlanta Games: in Salamanca one year previously he had jumped 17.98, 1 cm further than Willie Banks’ world record; a few weeks later he won the World Championship in Gothenburg, exceeding the 18 metre mark and setting 2 world records within the space of 25 minutes (18.16, 18.29, still standing today). When he arrived in Atlanta he had not been beaten for 22 competitions, but he jumped no further than 17.88 and came second behind American Kenny Harrison. He succeeded in winning the Olympic gold in Sydney, 2000, at the age of 34, with 17.71, beating Cuban Yoel Garcia and Russian Denis Kapustin. As well as his 2 Olympic medals, during his career he won 2 world titles (1995-2001), as well as a silver (1997) and 2 bronze (1993-1999) World Championship medals; and one gold (1998) and one bronze (2002) in the European Championships. Plus an indoor world silver, a European indoor gold (1998) and a gold and 2 silvers at the Commonwealth Games (2002). EDWARDS TERESA (basketball, USA, b. Cairo, Georgia, 19/7/1964). Five Olympic appearances (1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000), 4 gold medals (1984, 1988, 1996, 2000) and a bronze medal (1992). 1984 1-0-0, 1988 1-0-0, 1992 0-0-1, 1996 1-0-0, 2000 1-0-0. She is the only player, men included, to have won four gold medals for basketball. She played 32 matches at the Games, winning 31 and losing (79-73) just the 1992 semi-final against the Soviet team, scoring a total of 265 points with an average of 8.2 per match. At the end of her last Games, after the final in which the USA beat Australia 76-54 in Sydney, after all the other players had returned to the changing rooms, she remained seated alone at the centre of the basketball court to savour the satisfaction for her fourth success. She also won 2 World Championship gold medals (1986-90) and a bronze medal (1994) with the US team, with which she took part in 18 international events winning 14, with one silver and 3 bronze medals in the other 4 tournaments. When she was on the roster, the USA won 205 matches (46 consecutive matches between 1983 and 1991) and lost just 14. Her record in the 216 matches played is 2,008 points (an average of 9.3), 890 assists and 576 rebounds. She was still at college (twice in the Final Four with the Georgia Bulldogs) when she took part in her first Olympics. She has played in Italy (Vicenza and Magenta), Japan, Spain and France; in the USA she was player-coach for Atlanta Glory in the ABL for three seasons (1997-99), and she was invited to join the WNBA only when she was almost 39, in 2003, by Suzie McConnell Serio, with whom she had played in the 1988 and 1992 Olympics. In two seasons with Minnesota, she played 73 matches, including playoffs, scoring 401 points; then she became assistant-coach for the same team, Lynx, in 2006. 57 The Olympic Dictionary EGERSZEGI KRISZTINA (swimming, Hungary, b. Budapest 16/8/1974). Three Olympic appearances (1988, 1992, 1996), 5 gold medals (200 backstroke 1988, 1992 and 1996, 100 backstroke 1992, 400 medley 1992), one silver (100 backstroke 1988), one bronze (400 medley 1996). 1988 1-1-0, 1992 3-0-0, 1996 1-0-1. Her coach, Lászlo Kiss, noticed her at the pool when she was just 4. A child prodigy, in 1988 she won the 200 backstroke at the Seoul Games, becoming the youngest swimming Olympian at the age of 14 years and 40 days (record beat of 34 days by Japanese Iwasaki, gold in 200 breaststroke in 1992). In the same edition she won a silver medal in the 100 backstroke, behind East German Kristin Otto (q.v.). Nicknamed Little Mouse (“eger” in Hungarian means “mouse”), she did even better in Barcelona, 1992, where she won the 100 backstroke, 200 backstroke and 400 medley. “She lives like a dancer”, said her coach Kiss, “in the water she is always smiling, but there is a lot of sacrifice behind the scenes. Swimming is a monotonous sport, it can burn you out mentally, there is a lot of psychological work to be done. When she can’t stand it any more, I let her go to the cinema…”. At Atlanta 1996, even though she was just 22, she took part in her last Olympics: “Next season will be my last”, she said before the Games, “I want to retire, carrying on would not be right neither for my body nor for those around me”.