From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank

With Olympic track getting underway Thursday morning, and Florence’s Curtis Thompson scheduled to compete in the javelin next week, we thought it would be fun to take a look at every track Olympian South Jersey has produced.

I counted 16 Olympians from 11 high schools – Willingboro has produced three and Haddonfield and Woodbury two each and one Olympian grew up in South Jersey but went to high school in Philadelphia.

Incredibly, of South Jersey’s 16 track Olympians, 11 won at least one medal! That’s incredible!

Thompson joins Carl Lewis and Carol Lewis, Dennis Mitchell, Browning Ross and Mel Sheppard as the 6th South Jersey athlete to reach two Olympic Games in an individual event. So he’s the first since  Willingboro Track Club teammates Carl Lewis and Mitchell in 1996.

I think I have everyone but could be missing someone, possibly from the early years of the Olympic Games. I’m sure if I dud forget someone, Bill Collins will let me know within 30 seconds of this post going up! He’s quite the South Jersey track historian!

As for Thompson, he’s scheduled to throw the javelin early  Thursday morning. We don’t know yet if Thompson will be in Group A or Group B for qualifying, but they will throw at 4:20 a.m. and 5:50 a.m. early Thursday morning.

Don’t forget to set your alarm and support South Jersey’s only track Olympian in 2024!

Nia Ali [Pleasantville]: Ali won the silver medal in the 100-meter hurdles in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2016 with a time of 12.59.

Don Bragg [Penns Grove]: After setting a pole vault world record of 15-9 ¼ at the Olympic Trials, Bragg won the gold medal at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome with a 15-5 clearance.

Nadia Davy [Bridgeton]: Davy won a bronze medal after running the third leg on Jamaica’s 3rd-place 1,600-meter relay team at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Jamaica ran 3:22.00. Davy also competed in the open 400 and ran 52.04. She was the fastest non-qualifier in the trials and officially finished 25th.

Erin Donohue [Haddonfield]: Donohue qualified in the 1,500-meter run in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. She ran 4:16.05 and placed 28th overall.
Priscilla Frederick [Paul VI]: Competing for Antigua and Barbuda, Frederick qualified for the high jump at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. She cleared 6-2 ¼ in qualifying and finished 28th overall.

English Gardner [Eastern]: Gardner won a gold medal on the U.S. 400-meter relay team in the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro and a silver medal in the 2021 Games in Tokyo on the 4-by-1. She ran the 3rd leg in 2016, racing with Tianna Bartoletta, Allyson Felix and Tori Bowie, who ran 41.01, still 2nd-fastest in world history. In 2021, she didn’t run in the final but ran the 3rd leg in qualifying, joining Javianne Oliver, Teahna Daniels and Aleia Hobbs to run 41.90. The U.S. ran 41.45 in the final with Oliver, Daniels, Jenna Prandini and Gabrielle Thomas. Gardner also reached the 100 final in 2016 and placed 7th in 10.94.

Marielle Hall [Haddonfield]: Hall ran the 10,000 in the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro and placed 33rd in the final in 32:39.32.

Al LeConey [Moorestown]: At the 1924 Olympics in Paris, LeConey won a gold medal as part of the record-setting U.S. 400-meter relay team. In the trials, LeConey ran the 3rd leg and the team of Louis Clark, Frank Hussey, LeConey and Loren Murchison set a world record of 41.2. They lowered the world record to 41.0 in the semifinals and then tied it in the final, edging Great Britain by 2-10ths of a second for the gold medal.

Carl Lewis [Willingboro]: Despite being robbed of likely medals by the 1980 U.S. Olympic boycott, Lewis won nine Olympic gold medals and a silver and is one of only two Olympians to win a gold medal in the same event (long jump) in four consecutive Olympics. Al Oerter (discus) is the other. Lewis’s first Olympics was in 1984 in Los Angeles, where he won the 100 in 9.99, the long jump at 28-0 and the 200 with an Olympic-record 19.80. In his final event, he anchored the winning 400-meter relay team, with Sam Graddy, Ron Brown, Calvin Smith and Lewis setting a world record of 37.83. In 1988 in Seoul, South Korea, Lewis won the 100 with a world-record 9.92 after Ben Johnson was DQ’d for a positive test for a banned substance, he won the long jump 28-7 ¼ and took 2nd in the 200 to Joe DeLoach with a 19.79. In 1992 in Barcelona, he won his 3rd straight long jump with a 28-5 ¼ (after a 28-5 ¾ in qualifying) and anchored the gold-medal 4-by-1, which also included Michael Marsh, Leroy Burrell and Edgewood graduate Dennis Mitchell. That quartet set a world record of 37.40 and won by more than half a second over Nigeria. In 1996 in Atlanta, Carl won his 4th straight long jump gold medal with a 27-2 ¾ on his final attempt. He never competed again.

Carol Lewis [Willingboro]: Carol made the 1980 team but lost an opportunity to compete because of the U.S. boycott. In the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, She made the final and placed 9th at 21-1 after a 21-5 ¾ in qualifying. In 1988 in Seoul, Lewis jumped 21-2 ¾ in qualifying and was the top non-qualifier, finishing 13th overall.

Dennis Mitchell [Edgewood]: In his first Olympics, 1988 in Seoul, Mitchell lost out on a likely gold medal when the U.S. team was DQ’d for baton pass from Calvin Smith to Lee McNeill outside the exchange zone. He also just missed a medal in the 100, placing 4th in 10.04, just 5-100th of a second behind Smith in 3rd. In 1992 in Barcelona, Mitchell took 3rd in the 100 in 10.04, finishing behind only Linford Christie of Great Britain [9.96] and Frankie Fredericks of Namibia [10.02], and ran 3rd leg on the winning 400-meter relay team, following Michael Marsh and Leroy Burrell and handing off to anchor Carl Lewis, his one-time Willingboro Track Club teammate. Their 37.40 set a world record. In 1996, Mitchell, anchored the Silver Medal 4-by-1, which ran 38.05 and finished 2nd to Canada. Jon Drummond, Tim Harden and Marsh ran the first three legs. Mitchell again placed 4th in the 100 final, this time in 9.99.

Jack Pierce [Woodbury]: Pierce ran 13.26 to place 3rd and win the bronze medal in the 1992 Games in Barcelona behind Canadian Mark McKoy [13.12] and American Tony Dees [13.24].

Browning Ross [Woodbury]: In London in the 1948 Olympic Games, Ross placed 7th in the steeplechase in 9:23.2. He qualified for the steeple at the 1952 Games in Helsinki but finished 12th in his qualifying heat in 9:44.0 and was 23rd overall.

Mel Sheppard [Almonesson]: In the 1908 Olympics in London, Sheppard set an Olympic record of 4:05.0 in the 1,500 semifinals, a record that stood until the next semifinal race, when Great Britain’s Norman Hallows ran 4:03.6. In the final, Sheppard won in 4:03.6, winning his first gold medal and tying Hallows’ Olympic record. In the 800, Sheppard set a world record of 1:52.8 and then he ran a 1:55.4 anchor on the medley relay (now called the sprint medley), with William Hamilton and Nate Cartmell on the 200 legs and Philadelphia’s John Taylor the 400. The U.S. won the gold medal with a time of 3:29.4. In 1912, Sheppard ran 1:52.0 in the 800, finishing 2nd to Ted Meredith of the U.S., who set a world record of 1:51.9. Sheppard won his 4th and final gold medal anchoring the U.S. 1,600-meter relay team, which also included Edward Lindberg, Meredith and Charles Reidpath and set a world record of 3:16.6. Meredith died in 1957 after spending his final years living in Haddonfield.

Lamont Smith [Willingboro]: After running 44.30 and placing 4th in the 400 at the 1992 Trials in Atlanta, Smith earned a spot in the relay pool and led off the U.S. gold-medal relay in Atlanta with a 44.62 split. He was followed by Alvin Harrison, Derek Mills and Anthuan Maybank. The U.S. ran 2:55.99, which remains 7th-fastest in world history.

Curtis Thompson [Florence]: In the 2021 Games in Tokyo, Thompson threw 256-6 on his 1st attempt and placed 21st overall. He also had throws of 256-2 and 255-6 and missed the 12-man final by about 14 feet. Thompson, now a four-time U.S. champion and two-time Olympic Trials champ, is ranked 23rd in the world this year with his 272-5 in Eugene at the Trials last month.

Shana Williams [Bridgeton]: At the 1996 Games in Atlanta, Williams failed to get a legal mark in the long jump. In 2000 in Sydney, she placed 20th with a 21-1 ½ on her 1st attemptin the qualifying round. She missed advancing to the final by about six inches.