On the bedside table:
Parry O'Brien Remembered
One of America's greatest amateur athletes has died:
When Parry O'Brien began throwing the shot in college he changed everything; O'Brien understood physics, he discovered that by facing the back of the circle and then turning 180 degrees, using the spin to generate momentum, he was able to throw the shot greater distances. His revolutionary new spin technique became known as the O'Brien Glide, and it made him famous, ultimately landing him on the cover of Time magazine in 1956. It is still the method used in competition today.
O'Brien was 20 and a junior at USC when he set an Olympic record and won gold at the 1952 Helsinki Games. In May 1954 he was the first to break the 60-foot barrier in a meet at the LA Coliseum. He defended his Olympic title in 1956 at Melbourne, Australia. He held the world record from 1953 to 1959. In 1960, at Rome, O'Brien took the silver medal. In 1964, he was the flag bearer for the U.S. Olympic team at the Tokyo Games where he finished fourth. Without question Parry O’Brien was one of the greatest Olympic athletes of his generation.
His style was copied by many other athletes, but few could copy his record of success. Besides his Olympic achievements, he won 18 National Amateur Athletic Union championships, 17 in the shotput and one in the discus. He won nine consecutive national indoor shotput titles and won eight overall outdoors, including five in a row.
At his peak, O'Brien won 116 consecutive competitions. He extended the world record from 59 feet, 3/4 inch in 1953 to 63 feet, 4 inches in 1959, raising it 16 times.
It’s rare when someone comes around who literally changes how a sport is played—like Dick Fosbury’s Flop in high jump and Knute Rockne’s forward pass in football—or is the first to break a sacred threshold—like Roger Bannister’s four minute mile and Roger Maris’ sixty one home runs—Parry O’Brien accomplished both feats in his sport of shotput, doing it in dominant fashion on the world stage.
Cite:
Parry O'Brien, 75; revolutionized shotput - LA Times April 23, 2007