Irving Baxter

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http://www.hickoksports.com/biograph/baxterir.shtml

Baxter, Irving K.
Track and field
b. March 25, 1876, Utica, NY
d. June 13, 1957

The only man ever to win the Olympic high jump and pole vault, Baxter did it in 1900, when he also won silver medals in the standing high jump, standing long jump, and standing triple jump.

His pole vault victory was something of a fluke. Baxter had just won the high jump when the pole vault competition began. Two of the entrants, Charles Dvorak and Bascom Johnson, had left the field because the competition had supposedly been postponed. A third, Daniel Horton, refused to compete because it was Sunday. So Baxter entered on the spur of the moment and won.

Baxter tied for the 1901 British vole vault championship in an even stranger way. On the way to Paris for the 1900 Olympics, the U. S. team stopped in England and Baxter won the high jump at the British national meet. He returned in 1901 and won the high jump again. Only one competitor had entered the pole vault, so Baxter decided to try it. He hadn't brought his pole, and the other competitor refused to let Baxter use his, so Baxter pulled a flagpole out of the ground and matched the other man's vault.

He was the U. S. national pole vault champion in 1899, but Baxter went on to much greater success in the high jump, winning the national championship in the event from 1907 through 1910 and in 1912. Representing the University of Pennsylvania, Baxter was also the IC4A high jump champion in 1899.