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Dan O'Brien
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the former general manager of the Cincinnati Reds baseball team, see Dan O'Brien (baseball)
| Olympic medal record | |||
| Men's athletics | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Gold | Atlanta 1996 | Decathlon | |
Daniel Dion ("Dan") O'Brien (born July 18, 1966 in Portland, Oregon) is a former American decathlete. He was deemed one of the best decathlon athletes of the 1990s. In 1992 he set a world record of 8,891 points, but failed to qualify for that year's Olympics when he failed to clear a height in the pole vault during the decathlon in the U.S. Olympic Trials.
Dan O'Brien grew up as an adopted child in an Irish-American family in Klamath Falls, Oregon. He is an alumnus of Henley High School and the University of Idaho, where he competed in track and field, although not in the decathlon. His name is attached to the university's outdoor track and field venue, where he quietly trained for his Olympic and world championships under the aid of Idaho's track coach, Michael W. Keller.
He was awarded gold medals at the 1991, 1993, and 1995 World Championships in Athletics. He also won an Olympic gold medal for decathlon in the 1996 Summer Olympics.
Four years earlier, in 1992, O'Brien appeared with U.S. rival Dave Johnson in a popular TV advertising campaign for Reebok. The commercials entitled "Dan and Dave," were meant to build interest in Reebok and the decathletes, culminating in the 1992 Olympics. At the Olympic trials, O'Brien voluntarily passed on the lower heights in the pole vault, then failed in his first three attempts, resulting in no points for the event, and ultimately, did not qualify for the Olympics. His unexpected failure to qualify received enormous attention; Reebok adjusted by running new ads featuring him cheering on Dave, who went on to win the bronze medal.
In the late 1990s, Dan O'Brien appeared in ads for Italian designer Versace. He was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame & Museum in 2005.
| Olympic champions in the all around, pentathlon and decathlon |
|---|
| As all-around: Tom Kiely |
| As pentathlon: Hjalmer Mellander | Jim Thorpe | Eero Lehtonen (twice) |
| As decathlon: Jim Thorpe | Helge Løvland | Harold Osborn | Paavo Yrjölä | James Bausch | Glenn Morris | Bob Mathias (twice) | Milt Campbell | Rafer Johnson | Willi Holdorf | Bill Toomey | Nikolay Avilov | Bruce Jenner | Daley Thompson (twice) | Christian Schenk | Robert Změlík | Dan O'Brien | Erki Nool | Roman Šebrle |
He is now currently a volunteer track coach for the Arizona State University Sun Devils.