Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Full name | Donald Eugene Blair-Sanford | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nickname | DBS | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Citizenship | American–Israeli | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Los Angeles, California | February 5, 1987||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Alma mater | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Height | 1.96 m (6 ft 5 in) [1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Weight | 80 kg (180 lb) [1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Spouse | Danielle Dekel | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Country | Israel | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | Athletics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Event | 400m | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Club | Maccabi Tel Aviv | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Coached by | Lloyd Cowan | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Achievements and titles | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Personal best(s) | 400m; 45.04 seconds | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Updated on October 10, 2015. |
Donald Eugene Blair-Sanford (born February 5, 1987) is an American-Israeli Olympic sprinter, who specialises in the 400 metre dash.
His personal record at 400 metres is 45.04 seconds. He represented Israel in the 2012 Summer Olympics. He won the bronze medal in 400 metres at the 2014 European Athletics Championships, with a new Israeli record of 45.27 seconds. Competing for Israel at the 2015 European Games, Sanford won with a time of 45.75.
Sanford was born, one of four children, in Inglewood in Los Angeles County, California, to Donald E. Sanford Jr. and Debra Blair, who had run track in high school. [2] [3] He attended City Honors High School in Inglewood but competed for Morningside High School. [4] He won the 400m dash at the California Interscholastic Federation Division III Championships, and was a member of the National Honor Society. [5]
He competed for one season at Morgan State University, running a season-best time of 46.92 to place second at the IC4A Championships. [5]
He became an Israeli citizen after marrying Israeli basketball player Danielle Dekel, whom he met when they were both students at Central Arizona College where she was playing basketball for the school. [2] [6] He earned an associate degree at Central Arizona in 2007, where he ran on two NJCAA Outdoor Championship teams (in 2006 and 2007). [5]
He also studied at Arizona State University, which he represented in athletic competitions within the United States, [5] and set his 400m personal record of 45.21 seconds. He was the 2010 NCAA runner-up at 400 meters and was part of the 4×400-meter indoor and outdoor relays that season, and was named an All-American. [7]
Sanford's club is Maccabi Tel Aviv, and he is coached by Lloyd Cowan. [1]
In 2012, Sanford represented Israel for the first time at a major sporting event, finishing 4th at the European Athletic Championships, held in Helsinki, nine-hundredths of a second away from a medal at 45.91 seconds. [8]
A little over a month later, he ran in the 2012 Summer Olympics. His shoes were stolen from his bag just ahead of his qualifying heat, and he had to run in a teammate's shoes. [9] [10] He finished fifth in a time of 45.71 seconds, in a race won by double-amputee South African Oscar Pistorius, and did not make it out of the qualifying rounds. [11] [12] He was ranked 26th, two places and one-tenth of a second behind the runners who qualified for the semifinals. [13]
At the 2013 Maccabiah Games, Sanford broke the Israeli record and won the gold medal in the 400 meter race with a time of 45.65, defeating Australian Olympic finalist Steven Solomon. [14]
In 2014, Sanford won the bronze medal in the 400 metres sprint at the European Athletic Championships held in Zurich on August 15, 2014, with a new Israeli record of 45.27 seconds. [15] He dedicated his medal to the Israel Defense Forces. [15] He was the second Israeli to win a medal at the European Athletic Championships, after Alex Averbukh won gold medals in the pole vault in 2002 and 2006. [15] [16]
In December 2014, he was named Israeli Sportsman of the Year. [17]
In June 2015, competing for Israel at the 2015 European Games, Sanford won the 400 m in 45.75, a European Games record, as Team Israel won a bronze medal. [18] [19]
Sanford competed for Israel at the 2016 Summer Olympics. He ran the 400m and finished in 5th place in his heat in a time of 46.06, 10 split-seconds behind the semi-final qualifying time, and placed 33rd overall. [20]
Sanford and his wife, Israeli native Danielle Dekel-Sanford, married in 2008, and live in Kibbutz Ein Shemer about an hour north of Tel Aviv with their children, Amerie Ann and Rylee. [8] [3] His wife's father, Ehud Dekel, was the first Israeli to compete in four different sports in Israel’s highest sports league, the First League. [3] His older sister, Donnisha "CoCoa" Sanford was a member of the 2004 Pac-10 regular-season championship team for the University of Arizona women's basketball team. She also played professional basketball overseas from 2009-2012.
Distance | Time | Place | Date |
---|---|---|---|
400m | 45.21 sec | Eugene, Oregon | June 13, 2010 |
400m | 45.27 sec | Zürich, Switzerland | August 15, 2014 |
400m | 45.04 sec | Meteor Stadium, Zhukovsky | July 19, 2015 |
The 400 metres hurdles is a track and field hurdling event. The event has been on the Olympic athletics programme since 1900 for men and since 1984 for women.
Kerron Stephon Clement is a Trinidadian-born American track and field athlete who competes in the 400-meter hurdles and 400-meter sprint. He held the indoor world record in the 400-meter sprint, having broken Michael Johnson's mark in 2005.
Martyn Joseph Rooney is an English sprinter who specialises in the 400 metres event. He reached the 400 m final at the 2008 Summer Olympics and won bronze in the 4×400 metres relay. A mainstay on the anchor leg of the Great Britain and England 4 x 400 metre relay teams, at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics he won a silver medal with the Great Britain relay team, and bronze in the 2015 and 2017 World Championships.
Kirani James is a Grenadian professional sprinter who specializes in the 200 and 400 metres. He won the 400 m at the World Championships in 2011, and the 2012 London Olympics. In the 400 metres, James also won the silver medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics, and bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, thus becoming the first man to earn the full set of three medals in the centennial history of the event. He is Grenada's first and only Olympic medalist.
Aleksey Bazarov born 14 October 1963) is a retired USSR-born Israeli athlete who specialized in the 400 metres hurdles.
Demetrius Pinder is a Bahamian male track and field sprint athlete who competes in the 400 metres. His personal best for the event is 44.77 seconds. At the 2012 London Olympics he was a 400 m finalist and relay gold medallist.
The men's 400 metres competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom, was held at the Olympic Stadium on 4–6 August. Forty-nine athletes from 38 nations competed. The event was won by Kirani James of Grenada, earning the country its first Olympic medal. Luguelín Santos's silver was the Dominican Republic's first medal in the men's 400 metres. Lalonde Gordon's bronze was Trinidad and Tobago's first medal in the event since 1964.
Anna Vasylivna Ryzhykova, nee Yaroshchuk is a Ukrainian track and field athlete who specialises in the 400 metres hurdles. At the European Athletics Championships, she won silver medals in 2012 and 2018, and bronze in 2022. Ryzhykova placed fifth at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Luguelín Miguel Santos Aquino is a Dominican sprinter, who specialises in the 400 m. He was the silver medallist in the event at the 2012 London Olympics at the age of eighteen. His personal best is 44.11 seconds.
Steven Solomon is an Australian Olympic sprinter. He is a six-time defending Australian 400 metres champion.
Amit Ivry is an Israeli Olympic swimmer, Maccabiah Games champion, and national record holder. She competes in the butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and medley.
The 19th Maccabiah were held during July 18 to 30, 2013.
Harry Kane is a British former Olympic hurdler. Born "Harry Cohen" to a Jewish family in England, he set British and Maccabiah Games records during his career.
Matthew Hudson-Smith is a British track and field sprinter who specialises in the 400 metres. He holds, as of August 2023, the British and European record, running a personal best of 44.26 seconds for the distance set at the Budapest World Championships in 2023. He was the 2018 European Champion in 400 metres, and a member of the gold-winning teams in the 4 x 400 metre relay at the 2014 European Athletics Championships, with Great Britain and 2014 Commonwealth Games with England.
Jakub Krzewina is a Polish track and field sprinter who specialises in the 400 metres. A frequent competitor for Poland in the 4×400 metres relay, he has won two medals at the European Athletics Championships and reached the final at the 2016 Summer Olympics. He was also a relay silver medallist with Europe at the 2014 IAAF Continental Cup.
Keren Michaela Siebner, is an Israeli Olympic swimmer, Israeli national champion, Maccabiah Games winner, and a national record holder in the 200m butterfly and 200m backstroke.
The 2017 Maccabiah Games, also referred to as the 20th Maccabiah Games, were the 20th edition of the Maccabiah Games. They took place from 4 to 17 July 2017, in Israel. The Maccabiah Games are open to Jewish athletes from around the world, and to all Israeli citizens regardless of their religion. A total of 10,000 athletes competed, a Maccabiah Games record, making the 2017 Maccabiah Games the third-largest sporting competition in the world. The athletes were from 85 countries, also a record. Countries represented for the first time included the Bahamas, Barbados, Cambodia, the Cayman Islands, Haiti, Malta, Morocco, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and Trinidad. The athletes competed in 45 sports.
Diana Vaisman is a Belarusian-born Israeli track and field athlete and sprinter. She holds the Israeli national record in the 100 metre sprint.
African Americans in Israel number at least 25,000, comprise several separate groups, including the groups of African American Jews who have immigrated from the United States to Israel making aliyah, non-Jewish African Americans who have immigrated to Israel for personal or business reasons, pro-athletes who formerly played in the major leagues in the United States before playing in Israel on local basketball and other sports teams, as well as foreign students studying in Israeli universities, businessmen, merchants, and guest workers, along with Israeli citizens of African American ancestry. African Americans have served in the Israel Defence Force, and have largely been accepted and into Israeli society, and have represented Israel in numerous international forums such as the Olympic Games, and the Eurovision Song Contest. African American-Israelis have had a major cultural impact in Israel, particular in the arts and culture, music and sports. In addition, there as a large community of Black Hebrew Israelites numbering at least 5,000 people, who originally immigrated to Israel from Chicago in the 1960s, and live mostly in the southern Israeli town of Dimona.
Bar Soloveychik is an Israeli swimmer. He holds the Israeli national records in both the 400m freestyle, and the 800m free. At the 2018 European Junior Swimming Championships, he won a gold medal as part of Israel's 4×200 m freestyle relay. He attends the University of Minnesota, where he has swum sprint, mid-distance, and distance events, and holds school records in the 200 free and 500 free. He won a gold medal at the 2022 Maccabiah Games in the 400 m freestyle. He competes in 1500 m freestyle, 200 m freestyle, 400 m freestyle, 7.5 km open water, 800 m freestyle, 4x200 m freestyle, and 4x200m freestyle mixed.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)