OERTER, Al(fred) Adolph, Jr.

(b. 19 August 1936, in Astoria, New York), track and field athlete who specialized in the discus throw, set four world records, and won four consecutive Olympic gold medals from 1956 to 1968, becoming the first Olympic athlete to do so in the same track and field event.

Oerter, the son of Alfred and Mary Strup Oerter, grew up playing stickball, baseball, and football on the streets of Long Island in the 1940s. "It was a great training ground for becoming an athlete," Oerter later recalled, noting that he "certainly loved sports as a kid." When he was sixteen, his mother died of cancer, and so, temporarily, did his love of sports. After quitting the Sewanhaka High School football team that fall, Oerter went out for the track team in the spring, first trying the sprints and then the mile before discovering his talent as a discus thrower. One day while practicing for the mile, he picked up a stray discus and threw it back to his teammates, lofting the implement high above their heads. His coach Jim Faley, a former New York Giants fullback, switched Oerter immediately from the mile to the discus. In 1954 he set a national high school record of 184 feet, 2 inches in the discus throw.

After graduating from high school in 1954, Oerter enrolled in the University of Kansas. He attributes his success there as a discus thrower to having an academic, rather than an athletic, scholarship. Oerter believes that if he had had an athletic scholarship, the Athletics Department probably would have forced him to play football because of his size.

Having established a national freshman class record of 171 feet, 6 inches in the discus throw in 1955, Oerter won the Big Seven (later Big Eight) Conference championship in 1956. Fourth place and sixth place finishes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) notwithstanding, Oerter qualified for the U.S. Olympic Team in 1956. After watching the favorites, Adolfo Consolini of Italy and Fortune Gordien of the United States, take their first throws, the unheralded Oerter, felt "inspired" and hurled the discus 184 feet, 10.5 inches, then the longest throw of his career and an Olympic record. "I don't know how I did it," he later remarked. "Somehow or other everything just went right and this throw came out." Oerter's first throw remained the best of the day, and secured him an Olympic gold medal.

Back at Kansas, Oerter won Big Seven Conference titles in both the discus and the shot put in 1957 and 1958 (outdoors) and the shot put in 1957 and 1958 (indoors). Despite winning both the NCAA and AAU titles in the discus throw in 1957, he was tied by Rink Babka of the University of Southern California for the 1958 NCAA title and finished second to Babka in the AAU championship. In 1958 Oerter married Corinne Benedetto; the couple divorced in 1975. After graduating from Kansas in 1959, he returned to New York, going to work for Grumman Aircraft Company as a data processor. That year he won the discus throw in both the AAU national championships and the Pan American Games.

At the 1960 Olympic Trials, Oerter suffered his first loss in two years to Babka, who had equaled the world record of 196 feet, 6.5 inches. He trailed Babka through the first four rounds of Olympic competition until Babka advised Oerter to shift the position of his left arm while throwing. Following this advice, Oerter unleashed the discus 194 feet, 2 inches, establishing a new Olympic record and securing the gold medal. "That's what sports should be about," commented Oerter, looking back upon that time, "one teammate helping another teammate in the best of competition."

In 1962 Oerter established a world record of 200 feet, 5.5 inches, for the first official throw over 200 feet. Seventeen days later, however, Vladimir Trusenyov of the Soviet Union erased this record with a toss of 202 feet, 2.5 inches. Despite falling short of Trusenyov's standard by half an inch in winning the 1962 AAU title, Oerter exceeded it at the USA-USSR dual meet that year with a performance of 204 feet, 10.5 inches. He raised the world record to 205 feet, 5.5 inches in 1963 and to 206 feet, 4 inches in 1964. Suffering from a chronic cervical disc injury throughout much of 1964, Oerter competed wearing a neck brace fashioned from a belt and several towels. Although he won the AAU championship that year, he finished second to Jay Silvester in the Olympic Trials. In the 1964 Olympic Games, Oerter opened the competition with an Olympic record of 198 feet, 8 inches in the qualifying rounds. In the finals he trailed Ludvik Danek of Czechoslovakia until hurling the discus 200 feet, 1.5 inches in the fifth round to establish another Olympic record and win a third gold medal.

Oerter did not compete in 1965 but returned in 1966 to win the AAU title. In 1967 he finished fourth in the AAU, and in 1968 third in the Olympic Trials behind Silvester and Gary Carlsen. In the 1968 Olympic final, Oerter trailed his competitors until the third round when he threw 212 feet, 6 inches, for yet another Olympic record and gold medal. For good measure, Oerter's next throw reached 212 feet, 5 inches, and his final throw of the day measured 210 feet, 1 inch. In comparison, Lothar Milde of the former German Democratic Republic threw only 206 feet, 11 inches for second place.

After an eight-year retirement Oerter returned to competition in 1977, winning the discus throw at the Kansas Relays. In 1978 he improved his personal best to 221 feet, 4 inches, and in 1980 to 227 feet, 11 inches; the 1980 distance remained the world record for 40–44-year-olds in 2001. In 1980 Oerter, then aged 43, finished fourth in the Olympic Trials. In 1982 he established a world record of 216 feet, 11 inches for 45–49-year-olds, and in 1989, a U.S. record of 205 feet, 10 inches for 50–54-year-olds. In 1983 Oerter married Cathy Jo Carroll.

One of the greatest Olympic athletes in history, Oerter became the first track and field performer to win four consecutive gold medals in the same event, the discus, in 1968. His feat remained unequaled until 1996, when Carl Lewis won a fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal in the long jump. Ranked by Track and Field News among the world's top ten best discus throwers every year from 1956 to 1969 (excluding 1965, because he did not compete that year), Oerter earned the number one ranking six times, more than any other discus thrower since 1947, when the journal started ranking athletes. Track and Field News also recognized Oerter as the number one discus thrower of the 1960s and as the twentieth century's best performer.

For information about Oerter's life and career, see Frank G. Menke, The Encyclopedia of Sports, 4th rev. ed. (1969); Cordner Nelson, Track's Greatest Champions (1986); Roberto L. Quercetani, Athletics: A History of Modern Track and Field Athletics (1860–1990), Men and Women (1990); and David Wallechinsky, The Complete Book of the Summer Olympics: Sydney 2000 Edition (2000).

Adam R. Hornbuckle