Dave Travis

Last updated

Dave Travis
Dave Travis 2.jpg
Personal information
Full nameDavid Howard Travis
Born (1945-09-09) 9 September 1945 (age 78)
Twickenham, London, UK
Height6 ft 0 in (183 cm)
Weight190 lb (86 kg)
Sport
Sport Athletics
Event Javelin
Medal record
Representing Flag of the United Kingdom.svg  Great Britain
World Student Games
Gold medal icon (G initial).svg 1967 Tokyo Javelin throw
Representing Flag of England.svg  England
Commonwealth Games
Gold medal icon (G initial).svg 1970 Edinburgh Javelin throw
Silver medal icon (S initial).svg 1974 Christchurch Javelin throw

David Howard Travis (born 9 September 1945) was a British javelin thrower. He competed at the 1968 and 1972 summer Olympics in the javelin and won a gold medal in the 1967 World Student Games and the 1970 Commonwealth Games. He was an international athlete from 1965 to 1978 and the British record holder for 4 years.

Contents

Early life and school sport

He was born in Strawberry Hill, south west London, in 1945 and lived for the first eleven years in East Twickenham, subsequently moving to Hinchley Wood near Esher. He attended Hampton Grammar School from 1957 to 1964 where his talent for sport was nurtured. He excelled at school athletics in a variety of events, making his debut at the English Schools Championships in 1960, placing second in the under 15 shot. Two titles in the javelin were achieved in 1963 and 1964, whilst also figuring in the winning sprint relay team for Middlesex Schools in 1962. His club career for Surrey Athletic Club included a British under 19 record of 70.70m in 1964. He left secondary school with national status in three disciplines: javelin, decathlon and rugby.

Education and career

He went on to study at Loughborough College from 1965 to 1968, gaining a Teaching Qualification and a First Class Diploma. From 1968 to 1990 he forged a career as a PE teacher and Pastoral Head at Sidney Stringer, Coventry, before going on to a sport development career which culminated in becoming Director of Sport in Education for Bristol City Council. In 1999 this work was recognised with a national Sportsmatch Award.

Sport (javelin/decathlon)

Following a successful schools athletic career, he made his senior international debut in the javelin in 1965 and was selected for the Empire Games in Jamaica in 1966. A year later in 1967 he won the World Student Games title in Tokyo and made the Olympic team in 1968 in Mexico City. He was coached at the time by Colin Smith, hitherto Britain’s most successful javelin thrower at international level. The main event in 1969 was the European Championships in Athens. Although placing only 9th, the best result yet for Britain in this event, it could have been much better with a throw ruled flat by the judges which would have won a bronze medal.

1970 was to prove his best year, setting a UK record of 82.22m in July, winning the Commonwealth Games title by almost 3 metres, and scoring a significant victory in the European Cup beating Janis Lusis, the Olympic champion and world record holder from Russia, with a British Record throw of 83.44 m. He maintained his domestic dominance through the early 70s - winning 7 AAA javelin titles from 1965 to 1974 - and gained a silver medal at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in New Zealand. Although regularly exceeding 80 metres in competition, his personal best remained the same despite qualifying 2nd in the European Championships in Rome with a throw of 82.38 m. He proved to be one of the most consistent UK javelin throwers recording 21 throws over 80m between 1969 and 1974.

His decathlon career started in 1964 with a British junior record, and in 1965 he made his international senior debut setting a short lived UK record mark. In 1968 he attempted to qualify for both the javelin and decathlon for the Olympic Games in Mexico City but fell just short with a new personal best of 7,067 points. At the end of that season he left the decathlon behind to concentrate on the javelin.

Sport (rugby union/weightlifting)

He combined rugby with athletics at school and reached the top representative level. In 1963/4 he was selected for English Schools in matches against Wales (twice) and France as a wing three quarter, and in the selection trials he was selected ahead of David Duckham, who later went on to be a major figure in the English senior team. He represented Loughborough Colleges in 1965 playing outside the legendary Welsh player Gerald Davis but he halted his career that year to concentrate on athletics. A brief return to the game for the 1970/71 season for Richmond proved to be his last first class appearance, although later in life he represented Barker Butts RFC in the Warwickshire Cup Final at the age of 38.

Alongside his athletics training, he developed an expertise in Olympic Weightlifting for the Twickenham and Sunbury clubs. This resulted in Middlesex and South East England titles with personal bests of 105 kg for the snatch and 135 kg for the clean and jerk.

Sport (coaching)

As his throwing days came to an end, he became involved in coaching with a group of throwers in Birmingham including Dave Ottley and John Trower, which led to a brief spell as National Event Coach. His guidance helped Dave Ottley to a silver medal at the 1984 Olympic Games and launched John Trower as a high level coach who would go on to assist Steve Backley and Mick Hill to international titles.

Related Research Articles

Stephen James Backley, OBE is a retired British track and field athlete who competed in the javelin throw. He formerly held the world record, and his 91.46-metre (300.1 ft) throw from 1992 is the British record. During his career, he was a firm fixture in the British national athletics team. He won four gold medals at the European Championships, three Commonwealth Games gold medals, two silvers and a bronze at the Olympic Games, and two silvers at the World Championships. Currently, he is an occasional commentator for athletics competitions, especially the field events.

Dean Macey is an English athlete from Canvey Island. He is best known for competing in the decathlon, which he did from 1995 to 2008, winning the Commonwealth Games decathlon, two World Championship medals, as well as twice finishing fourth in the Olympic Games. Retiring from decathlon due to injury, he competed in the bobsleigh between 2008 and 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tessa Sanderson</span> British former javelin thrower (born 1956)

Theresa Ione Sanderson is a British former javelin thrower. She appeared in every Summer Olympics from 1976 to 1996, winning the gold medal in the javelin throw at the 1984 Olympics. She was the second track and field athlete to compete at six Olympics, and the first Black British woman to win an Olympic gold medal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fatima Whitbread</span> British javelin thrower (born 1961)

Fatima Whitbread, is a British retired javelin thrower. She broke the world record with a throw of 77.44 m in the qualifying round of the 1986 European Athletics Championships in Stuttgart, and became the first British athlete to set a world record in a throwing event. Whitbread went on to win the European title that year, and took the gold medal at the 1987 World Championships. She is also a two-time Olympic medallist, winning bronze at the 1984 Summer Olympics and silver at the 1988 Summer Olympics. She won the same medals, respectively, in the Commonwealth Games of 1982 and 1986.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Smith (decathlete)</span> Canadian decathlete (born 1967)

Michael Cameron "Mike" Smith is a Canadian decathlete from Kenora, Ontario.

David Charles "Dave" Ottley is a retired British athlete who mainly competed in the men's javelin throw event.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Goldie Sayers</span> British javelin thrower

Katherine Dinah "Goldie" Sayers is a British former javelin thrower, who won a bronze medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics. She was born in Newmarket, Suffolk, England. On 20 May 2007, Sayers set a new British record in the javelin at 65.05 m, thus becoming the first British woman to throw over 65 metres since javelins were redesigned in 1999. Sayers set the record when competing for her university, Loughborough, at the Loughborough International match. She cemented this achievement at the Norwich Union Glasgow Grand Prix on 3 June 2007 where she beat a top-class international field in rainy conditions with a throw of 63.59 m. Defeated rivals included European champion and Olympic silver medallist Steffi Nerius and world champion Barbora Špotáková.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Gabbett</span>

Peter John Gabbett is a former holder of the British record for the decathlon. He is widely regarded as the first British decathlete to achieve world class performances in this event. He won the AAA Championships on three occasions, finished second in the 1970 Commonwealth Games, was sixth in the European Championships, and twice competed in the Olympic Games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Sharman</span> British hurdler (born 1984)

William "Will" Sharman is a British athlete who specialises in the 110 metres hurdles. He started his career as a junior high jumper and decathlete, but focused entirely on hurdling after a shoulder injury. He made his international debut for Great Britain at the 2006 European Athletics Championships and went on to compete at the 2007 Summer Universiade. Sharman came to prominence in 2009, after he significantly improved upon his previous personal best and finished fourth in the 110 metres hurdles final at the 2009 World Championships. This would be the first of three consecutive appearances in the World Championship final, he's since finished fifth in both the 2011 and 2013 finals.

William Raymond Tancred is a leading sports administrator, academic and former international athlete. He competed at the 1968 and 1972 Summer Olympics in the discus and won bronze and silver medals in successive Commonwealth Games from 1970 to 1974. He was the British national discus champion on nine occasions and held the British record for 25 years his personal best being 64.94m in 1974. He also competed in the shot put and remains one of the top ten British shot putters. Athleticsweekly.com has ranked Tancred as the greatest British discus thrower of all-time by virtue of his long reign as British record-holder and profusion of AAA titles. Bill Tancred was also the first UK athlete to break the 200 ft/61m discus barrier in 1972 which was also a UK all-comers record for the event (61.94m). Even in 2011 he could still claim to be one of the best all round throwers ever in British Athletics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lennart Hedmark</span> Swedish athletics competitor

Lennart Per-Olav Hedmark is a retired Swedish track and field athlete who competed in the decathlon. He represented his country at the 1968, 1972 and 1976 Summer Olympics with the best result of eighth place in 1976.

Malcolm Arnold is an athletics coach working for UK Athletics and its predecessors since 1974. Currently, he is the National Event Coach for Hurdles and Senior Performance Coach for UK Athletics. He has attended every Olympic Games since Mexico City in 1968, 13 in all, as a coach to National Teams. He has been responsible for coaching athletes to more than 70 major medals over a 46-year coaching career. He retired on 31 December 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julius Yego</span> Kenyan javelin thrower

Julius Yego is a Kenyan track and field athlete who competes in the javelin throw. Nicknamed "Mr. YouTube" because he learned how to throw by watching YouTube videos of javelin athletes, Yego is the African record holder for the event with a personal best of 92.72 m.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Damian Warner</span> Canadian decathlete (born 1989)

Damian David George Warner is a Canadian track and field athlete specializing in decathlon. He is the 2020 Olympic champion and a four-time World medallist. Warner also won the bronze medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics and was the 2014 Commonwealth champion and the two-time and reigning Pan American champion from the 2015 and 2019 Games. Warner holds the Pan Am Games record and the Canadian record for the decathlon and the fourth-highest decathlon score in history. Warner also holds the Olympic Games Record for the Decathlon at 9018 points. Competing in the heptathlon, he is the 2022 World Indoor champion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hollie Arnold</span> British athlete (born 1994)

Hollie Beth Arnold, is a British parasport athlete competing in category F46 javelin. Although born in Grimsby, she now lives and trains in Loughborough. She represents Wales in the Commonwealth Games. Arnold was the youngest ever field athlete to ever compete in the Paralympics, at the age of 14 at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, under the guidance of Olympic Javelin Thrower Shelley Holroyd, throwing a personal best. She also threw a personal best in 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. She took the gold medal in the F46 javelin in the 2016 Rio Paralympics, also throwing a new world record at the same time. In 2021, at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, she took the bronze medal in the same event. In 2018, she became the first ever Para Javelin thrower in history to hold all four major titles in the same Paralympic 4-year cycle: Rio Paralympics and world record 2016, London World Championships and world record 2017, Berlin European Championships and course record 2018 and Gold Coast Commonwealth Games and world record 2018. In 2019 Arnold lost her World Record to New Zealand F46 Para Javelin Thrower Hollie Robinson with the first 45m+ throw in history. She also holds four consecutive world titles: 2013 Lyon, 2015 Doha, 2017 London, and 2019 Dubai.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Combined events at the Olympics</span> Athletics events at the Olympics with scores based on multiple events

Combined events at the Summer Olympics have been contested in several formats at the multi-sport event. There are two combined track and field events in the current Olympic athletics programme: a men's decathlon and a women's heptathlon.

David Lorne Steen is a Canadian former track and field athlete who specialised in the shot put. He was a two-time gold medallist in the event at the Commonwealth Games in 1966 and 1970, breaking games records both times. He had won the bronze medal at the 1962 event. His personal record was 19.21 m, set in 1970.

John Henry FitzSimons is a British former track and field athlete who competed in the javelin throw. He was the gold medallist at the 1966 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, winning with a games record throw of 79.78 m. He is a former British record holder and was the first British man to throw the javelin beyond eighty metres. His personal best is 81.92 m.

Colin George Smith was a British former track and field athlete who specialised in the javelin throw. He was the gold medallist in the event at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, setting a games record mark of 71.29 m to win the title. He returned to defend his title in 1962 and was much improved with a lifetime best throw of 77.94 m, but he was beaten into the silver medal position by Australia's Alf Mitchell.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierce LePage</span> Canadian decathlete (born 1996)

Pierce LePage is a Canadian track athlete who competes in the decathlon. He is the 2023 World champion, and the first Canadian to win the decathlon title at the World Athletics Championships. LePage is also the 2022 World silver medalist, 2018 Commonwealth silver medallist, and 2019 Pan American bronze medallist. LePage represented Canada at the 2020 Summer Olympics, finishing in fifth place.

References

    1. Javelin: A Statistical Survey of British Throwing, Ian Tempest 1999. National Union of Track Statisticians
    2. UK All Time Rankings www.gbrathletics.com
    3. Athletics Weekly: July 1975, July 2014.
    4. www.surreyathletics.org.uk/trackfield/database/profile