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Olympic pole-vault champ commits suicide

Matthew Warren
Matthew Warren - [email protected]
Olympic pole-vault champ commits suicide

Olympic gold medallist, Pierre Quinon, has killed himself, the French Athletics Federation announced on Thursday.

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"The news was confirmed to me by family members," said the federation's president Bernard Amsalem.

49-year-old Quinon won gold in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, a year after breaking the world record with a jump of 5.82 metres.

According to a source quoted by AFP and reported in local newspaper Var Matin, "he jumped head first through a window from a height of five metres."

"He was depressed, he'd been taking pills and was not himself," the source said.

Fellow Olympic pole-vaulting champion Jean Galfione, who won gold at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, told newspaper Libération he had seen Quinon a month ago.

"He was a sensitive person. He'd been going through a difficult period," he said. "We knew he could be excessive, particularly when it concerned himself."

Quinon's success at the Los Angeles games was the first time a Frenchman had won Olympic gold in the event. After a series of injuries he eventually retired in 1992.

After retirement, he moved to the town of Hyères on the Mediterranean coast where he opened a restaurant. He had recently been involved with preparations for the 2015 World Masters Athletics in Lyon.

 

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