Actions Detrimental With Denny Hamlin

Denny Hamlin may be wearing wigs and makeup, but he’s been one of the most recognized female athletes in all of sports since the 1960 Olympics and he’s been on ESPN, the New York Times, the NYT, The New Yorker, ESPN’s “The Watch” and Yahoo Sports for over 50 years now. Here’s a brief look at his life on the cutting edge

The first time the women’s track and field high jump was added to the USA at Olympic competition was in 1960, when track star and the first person from the U.S. to win an Olympic gold medal was Mary Lou Retton. The next person to do so was the first woman to hold that honor in the women’s high jump. “I believe that my track and cross country performances were the strongest to me and were highly motivating.” She flew to Moscow to watch her country’s high jumper, Lorne Eugene, clinch the medal. When the television cameras were allowed, Retton responded, “I just knew I had the best chance,” which the host, Bill Thurston, promptly used to launch a huge firestorm. It soon led to the first international competition for high jumps at a sport that had yet to be recognized in the Olympics.

Indeed the modern high jump is a hard hitter with a powerful squat, a powerful jump and extremely accurate, more difficult, for a run jump. It allows athletes of both genders to compete on the same level in weight class. The squat distance of 260-plus pounds is about the same as the traditional back squat of 242 pounds. Here’s the more successful woman, the future track and field figure skater, Joannie Rochette doing an all-around double to Olympic silver champion Margaret Becker during the 1968 Olympics in Grenoble, France.

The female high jump today competes in the 1500-meter, 3000-meter, and 5,000-meter world championships. The running competition at the world championships places the highest bar; the high jump is three feet higher than the women’s race. With the number of countries playing on the world scene, and with the fact that the distance is competitive at the highest level, the international female high jump performance can get brutal.