Heath Baldwin (born February 8, 2001) is an American decathlete.

Early life

He is from

Kalamazoo, Michigan Kalamazoo ( ) is a city in the southwest region of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Kalamazoo County. At the 2010 census, Kalamazoo had a population of 74,262. Kalamazoo is the major city of the Kalamazoo-Portage Metropolit ...

, where he attended Hackett Catholic Prep High School. The youngest of four siblings, he was a keen

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

player before focusing on track and field after being persuaded to try it by his strength and conditioning coach. He also played

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

to all-state standard. He initially competed for the Michigan Wolverines track and field team before later transferring to

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

Career

He was runner up to

Leo Neugebauer Leo Neugebauer (born 19 June 2000) is a German multi-event track and field athlete. He is the German record holder in the decathlon and indoor heptathlon and Olympic silver medalist in the decathlon, having placed second at the 2024 Summer Olymp ...

at the 2024 NCAA Indoor Championships

heptathlon A heptathlon is a track and field combined events contest made up of seven events. The name derives from the Greek επτά (hepta, meaning "seven") and ἄθλος (áthlos, or ἄθλον, áthlon, meaning "competition"). A competitor in a hept ...

in March 2024 in Boston, Massachusetts. In the outdoor season in 2024, Baldwin skipped the regional and national collegiate trials to focus on the Olympic trials. In June 2024, he won the

decathlon The decathlon is a combined event in Athletics (sport), athletics consisting of ten track and field events. The word "decathlon" was formed, in analogy to the word "pentathlon", from Greek language, Greek δέκα (''déka'', meaning "ten") and ...

at the 2024 United States Olympic trials in

Eugene, Oregon Eugene ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley, near the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast. As of the 2020 United States Census, Eu ...

, having also led overnight following the first day of competition. In winning the title he scored a personal best 8625 points.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baldwin, Heath 2001 births Living people Track and field athletes from Michigan Sportspeople from Kalamazoo, Michigan Michigan State Spartans men's track and field athletes Michigan Wolverines men's track and field athletes Athletes (track and field) at the 2024 Summer Olympics