Thomas Edmund Burke (January 15, 1875 – February 14, 1929) was an American sprinter. He was the first Olympic champion in the 100 and 400 meter dash races.
Biography
Burke was born in
Massachusetts
Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
in 1875. He competed for the Suffolk Athletic Club in South Boston and the
Boston Athletic Association
The Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.) is a non-profit, running-focused, organized sports association for the Greater Boston area. The B.A.A. hosts such events as the Boston Marathon, the B.A.A. 5K, the B.A.A. 10K, the B.A.A. Half Marathon, the ...
(BAA).
Burke, a student at
Boston University School of Law, was a reputed runner in the 400 meters and 440 yards, having won the
AAU title (440 yards) in 1895. He had no such reputation for the first event he entered in the
inaugural modern Olympic Games in
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
, 1896. With many top sprinters absent, Burke surprisingly won the 100 meters. He was also noted for his "
crouch start", which was uncommon at that time but in standard use now. His time in the final was 12.0 seconds. In the preliminary heat, he had an even better time – 11.8 seconds.
[
At the same Olympics, Burke also won the 400 meters, his top event. His times for that event were 58.4 seconds in the preliminary heats and 54.2 seconds in the final, in both of which Burke finished first.][
Later in his career, Burke specialized in the longer distances, winning ]IC4A IC4A Championships (Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America) is an annual men's competition held at different colleges every year. Association was established in 1875, the competition (started in 1876) served as the top level col ...
titles in the 440 and 880 yards events. In 1897, he was one of the initiators of the annually held Boston Marathon, inspired by the success of the marathon event at the 1896 Olympics.[
Burke later became a lawyer, but was also an athletics coach and a part-time journalist, writing for '']The Boston Journal
''The Boston Journal'' was a daily newspaper published in Boston, Massachusetts, from 1833 until October 1917 when it was merged with the '' Boston Herald''.
The paper was originally an evening paper called the ''Evening Mercantile Journal''. Whe ...
'' and the ''Boston Post
''The Boston Post'' was a daily newspaper in New England for over a hundred years before it folded in 1956. The ''Post'' was founded in November 1831 by two prominent Boston businessmen, Charles G. Greene and William Beals.
Edwin Grozier bough ...
''.[
In World War I he was commissioned a first lieutenant and at age 43 was the oldest man in the US military to earn his aviator's wings. He died at age 53, collapsing on a ferry boat from Winthrop to Boston.]
References
External links
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Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Burke, Thomas
1875 births
1929 deaths
Athletes (track and field) at the 1896 Summer Olympics
19th-century sportsmen
American male sprinters
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in track and field
Boston University School of Law alumni
Medalists at the 1896 Summer Olympics
Track and field athletes from Boston
The Boston Post people