Dennis Mitchell
Encyclopedia
Dennis Allen Mitchell is a former American college and international track and field
Track and field
Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...

 athlete, whose team won the gold medal
Gold medal
A gold medal is typically the medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture...

 in the 4 x 100 meters relay
4 x 100 metres relay
The 4 × 100 metres relay or sprint relay is an athletics track event run in lanes over one lap of the track with four runners completing 100 metres each. The first runners begin in the same stagger as for the individual 400 m race...

 race at the 1992 Summer Olympics
1992 Summer Olympics
The 1992 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event celebrated in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, in 1992. The International Olympic Committee voted in 1986 to separate the Summer and Winter Games, which had been held in the same...

.

Athletic career

Mitchell was born in Havelock, North Carolina
Havelock, North Carolina
Havelock is a city in Craven County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 22,442 at the 2000 census, and estimated to be 21,906 in 2006...

. He received an athletic scholarship
Athletic scholarship
An athletic scholarship is a form of scholarship to attend a college or university awarded to an individual based predominantly on his or her ability to play in a sport...

 to attend the University of Florida
University of Florida
The University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...

 in Gainesville, Florida
Gainesville, Florida
Gainesville is the largest city in, and the county seat of, Alachua County, Florida, United States as well as the principal city of the Gainesville, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area . The preliminary 2010 Census population count for Gainesville is 124,354. Gainesville is home to the sixth...

, where he ran for the Florida Gators track and field team in National Collegiate Athletic Association
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...

 (NCAA) competition from 1986 to 1989. At Florida, Mitchell was coached by Joe Walker (now at Ole Miss). Mitchell placed fourth in the 100 meters race
100 metres
The 100 metres, or 100-metre dash, is a sprint race in track and field competitions. The shortest common outdoor running distance, it is one of the most popular and prestigious events in the sport of athletics. It has been contested at the Summer Olympics since 1896...

 at the 1988 Summer Olympics
1988 Summer Olympics
The 1988 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIV Olympiad, were an all international multi-sport events celebrated from September 17 to October 2, 1988 in Seoul, South Korea. They were the second summer Olympic Games to be held in Asia and the first since the 1964 Summer Olympics...

 and missed a probable gold medal in the 4x100-meters relay race, because the American team was disqualified in the early heats, after the baton pass between teammates Calvin Smith
Calvin Smith
Calvin Smith is a former sprint track and field athlete from the United States. He is a former World Record holder in the 100 metre sprint, and was twice World Champion over 200 metres...

 and Lee McNeill
Lee McNeill
Lee McNeill is a retired American sprinter who specialized in the 100 metres.He won the gold medal in 4 x 100 metres relay at the 1987 World Championships, together with Lee McRae, Harvey Glance and Carl Lewis....

 was completed outside the exchange zone. In 1989, Mitchell won the NCAA championships in 200-meter race
200 metres
A 200 metres race is a sprint running event. On an outdoor 400 m track, the race begins on the curve and ends on the home straight, so a combination of techniques are needed to successfully run the race. A slightly shorter race, called the stadion and run on a straight track, was the first...

, and he was inducted into the University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame as a "Gator Great" in 2005.

In 1991, just a month before the World Championships
1991 World Championships in Athletics
The 3rd World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations, were held in the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, Japan between August 23 and September 1 and athletes from 167 countries participated in the event.The event is best-remembered for the...

, Mitchell set his first world record in the 4x100-meters relay of 37.67 at Zürich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

. At the World Championships, Mitchell was again a member of the American 4 x 100 meters relay team, in which he set a new world record of 37.50 in the final. Mitchell also won a bronze medal
Bronze medal
A bronze medal is a medal awarded to the third place finisher of contests such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc. The practice of awarding bronze third place medals began at the 1904 Olympic Games in St...

 in the individual 100 meters race.

In 1992, Mitchell won his first United States National Championships title in the 100 meters (he repeated this victory in 1994 and 1996). At the Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

 Olympics
Athletics at the 1992 Summer Olympics
At the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, 43 events in athletics were contested, 24 events by men and 19 by women. The competition ran from July 31, 1992 to August 9, 1992. Fourteen world record-holders were among the contenders...

, Mitchell ran his third world record in 4x100-meters relay of 37.40 and won again a bronze medal in the 100 meters race.

At the 1993 World Championships
1993 World Championships in Athletics
The 4th World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations, were held in the Gottlieb Daimler Stadium, Stuttgart, Germany between August 13 and August 22 with the participation of 187 nations....

, Mitchell won his third bronze at the international championships in individual 100 meters and his third gold in relay event with a world record, as this time the American team equaled their own world record of 37.40.

Mitchell won a gold medal in 100 meters at the 1994 Goodwill Games
1994 Goodwill Games
The 1994 Goodwill Games was the third edition of the multi-sport event, created by Ted Turner, which was held in Saint Petersburg, Russia between July 23 and August 7, 1994...

, but injured himself in the heats of 100 -meters at the 1995 World Championships
1995 World Championships in Athletics
The 5th World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations, were held at the Ullevi Stadium, Gothenburg, Sweden between August 5 and August 13.This edition featured 1804 athletes from 191 nations....

. At the 1996 Summer Olympics
1996 Summer Olympics
The 1996 Summer Olympics of Atlanta, officially known as the Games of the XXVI Olympiad and unofficially known as the Centennial Olympics, was an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States....

, Mitchell was fourth in 100 -meters and won a silver medal
Silver medal
A silver medal is a medal awarded to the second place finisher of contests such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, and contests with similar formats....

 as a member of the second-place U.S. 4x100-meters relay team.

Personal

Mitchell is married to Damu Cherry-Mitchell, an Olympian in the 100-meter hurdles, and has three children. He coaches with the National Training Center in Clermont, as well as with his own club, Star Athletics. Students range from high-schoolers to Olympic hopefuls.

Doping history

In 1998, Mitchell was banned by IAAF
International Association of Athletics Federations
The International Association of Athletics Federations is the international governing body for the sport of athletics. It was founded in 1912 at its first congress in Stockholm, Sweden by representatives from 17 national athletics federations as the International Amateur Athletics Federation...

 for two years after a test showed high levels of testosterone
Testosterone
Testosterone is a steroid hormone from the androgen group and is found in mammals, reptiles, birds, and other vertebrates. In mammals, testosterone is primarily secreted in the testes of males and the ovaries of females, although small amounts are also secreted by the adrenal glands...

. His defense of "five bottles of beer and sex with his wife at least four times . . . it was her birthday, the lady deserved a treat," was accepted by USA Track and Field
USA Track and Field
USA Track & Field is the United States national governing body for the sports of track and field, cross country running, road running and racewalking...

 but not by the IAAF. Mitchell made his final international appearance at the 2001 World Championships
2001 World Championships in Athletics
The 8th World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations, were held at the Commonwealth Stadium, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada between 3 August and 12 August and was the first time the event had visited North America...

, where his team finished first in the 4 x 100 meters relay, but was subsequently disqualified because of BALCO
Balco
Balco can refer to:* the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative - a controversial sports medicine/nutrition centre in Burlingame, California.* Balco balcony systems who develops, designs and manufactures balcony systems and glazing solutions....

 scandal involvement by a teammate.

On May 1, 2008, it was announced that the U.S. government, in its trial against Trevor Graham
Trevor Graham
Trevor Graham is a Jamaican-born former athletics coach, based in the United States. Following the BALCO scandal, the US Olympic Committee barred him indefinitely from all its training sites as a number of the athletes he was training had tested positive for drug abuse.-Athletics career:Graham was...

, would have Mitchell, as well as Antonio Pettigrew
Antonio Pettigrew
Antonio Pettigrew was an American sprinter who specialized in the 400 meters. He was born in Macon, Georgia....

 as witnesses, with Mitchell to testify that Graham injected him with human growth hormone
Growth hormone
Growth hormone is a peptide hormone that stimulates growth, cell reproduction and regeneration in humans and other animals. Growth hormone is a 191-amino acid, single-chain polypeptide that is synthesized, stored, and secreted by the somatotroph cells within the lateral wings of the anterior...

.

See also

  • Florida Gators
    Florida Gators
    The Florida Gators are the intercollegiate sports teams that represent the University of Florida located in Gainesville, Florida. The "Lady Gators" is an alternative nickname sometimes used by the Gators women's teams...

  • List of University of Florida Olympians


External links

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