Germaine Mason
Template:Short description Template:EngvarB Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox sportsperson
Germaine Mason (20 January 1983 – 20 April 2017) was a Jamaican-born track and field athlete competing in high jump. In 2006, he switched sporting allegiance, and then represented Great Britain. As a Great Britain competitor, he won the silver medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Career
Mason won silver and bronze medals at the World Junior Championships in 2000 and 2002 respectively, the latter event held in his hometown of Kingston. His first medal at senior level came at the 2003 Pan American Games in Santo Domingo, when he won a gold medal, having achieved a personal best jump of 2.34 metres. He finished fifth at the World Championships the same year.
The following seasons saw him drop to 2.25 m (2004) and 2.27 m (2005), but 2.25 m was enough to win a bronze medal at the 2004 IAAF World Indoor Championships. The medal was won jointly with Jaroslav Bába and Ştefan Vasilache.
Mason was eligible to represent Great Britain because his father David was born in London. Mason's mother persuaded him to switch allegiance, and Mason's change in nationality was ratified by athletics' governing body, the IAAF, in 2006.[1]
Mason won a silver medal for Great Britain at the Beijing Olympics on 19 August 2008. He equalled his personal best of 2.34 m, beaten only by Russia's Andrey Silnov with 2.36 m. It was Great Britain's first track and field medal of the games.[2]
Death
Mason died in a motorbike accident on 20 April 2017 at the age of 34. Upon returning from a soca party he was riding his motorbike when he crashed.[3] His funeral was held at the Hagley Park Seventh-day Adventist Church in Kingston, Jamaica. His friend Usain Bolt was a pallbearer and dug the grave of Mason.[4][5]
Achievements
References
External links
- Template:Olympedia
- Obituary in The Independent by Marcus Williamson
- Template:First word Template:PAGENAMEBASE at World AthleticsTemplate:EditAtWikidataTemplate:WikidataCheck
- Official website Template:Webarchive
- Management website
Template:Footer Pan American Champions High Jump Men Template:British Athletics Championships men's high jump champions Template:Authority control
Template:UK-athletics-Olympic-medalist-stub
- ↑ Germain Mason Template:Webarchive. Sports Reference. Retrieved on 2015-02-01.
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- Pages with script errors
- 1983 births
- 2017 deaths
- Athletes from Kingston, Jamaica
- Jamaican male high jumpers
- British male high jumpers
- Olympic male high jumpers
- Olympic athletes for Great Britain
- Olympic silver medallists for Great Britain
- Olympic silver medalists in athletics (track and field)
- Athletes (track and field) at the 2008 Summer Olympics
- Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
- Commonwealth Games athletes for Jamaica
- Athletes (track and field) at the 2002 Commonwealth Games
- Pan American Games gold medalists for Jamaica
- Pan American Games gold medalists in athletics (track and field)
- Athletes (track and field) at the 2003 Pan American Games
- World Athletics Championships athletes for Great Britain
- World Athletics Championships athletes for Jamaica
- British Athletics Championships winners
- Jamaican emigrants to the United Kingdom
- Jamaican Seventh-day Adventists
- Road incident deaths in Jamaica
- Motorcycle road incident deaths
- Medalists at the 2003 Pan American Games
- Jamaican Athletics Championships winners
- Wolmer's Schools alumni
- Jamaican people of English descent
- 21st-century British sportsmen