A
five-time Olympic track and field medallist (four golds),
Meyer Prinstein won his first gold medal
in the 1900
Paris Olympics Triple Jump with a leap
of 47' 53/4" (14.47 meters). That year, he
also took a silver medal in the Long
Jump event with a mark of 23' 61/2" (7.175
meters).
At the 1904 St. Louis Olympiad,
Prinstein captured gold medals in the
Long Jump, setting an Olympic record
of 24' 1" (7.34 meters) and the Triple
Jump with a mark of 47' 1" (14.35 meters).
At the unofficial Athens Olympics
in 1906, Prinstein again took gold medal
honors in the Long Jump with a leap of
23' 71/2" (7.20 meters). Prinstein's lone silver
medal was a subject of controversy
at the 1900 Games. At the completion
of the Long Jump
trials on Saturday,
he was leading the
competition. The finals
were scheduled
for the following
day. As a
Methodist Syracuse
University student,
Prinstein was instructed,
along with
many other American
student athletes,
not to compete
on Sunday, the
Christian sabbath.
While he followed
instructions, a few
other American
athletes did compete
on that Sunday,
including his
Long Jump arch rival,
University of
Pennsylvania's
Alvin Kraenzlein.
In Prinstein's absence
and with six unchallenged leaps, Kraenzlein
managed to top the
Syracuse undergraduate's
event-leading mark to win
the gold medal.
Prinstein also won
many National U.S. track
titles, his first in 1898. In
1900, he set the World
Long Jump record at 7.50
meters.
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