Contents

Michel Macquet

French javelin thrower and handballer (1932–2002)

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (January 2012) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the French article. Machine translation, like DeepLorGoogle Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Michel Macquet]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|fr|Michel Macquet}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Michel Macquet (3 April 1932 – 27 October 2002) was a French javelin thrower and handball player. Track & Field News ranked him the world's best javelin thrower in 1961.

Born in Amiens, Macquet was originally a handball player, taking up the javelin in 1949.^[1] He won his first national championship title in the javelin in 1953, but his breakthrough years were 1955 and 1956, when he repeatedly improved the French record and entered the international javelin elite.^[1] In May 1956 Macquet threw 79.01 m, which was less than three meters short of Bud Held's world record;^[1][2] ahead of the 1956 Olympics he beat Finland's Soini Nikkinen, who had broken the world record in the meantime, in a dual meet between France and Finland.^[1][3] Macquet was considered a potential Olympic medalist,^[1] but at the OlympicsinMelbourne he only threw 71.84 m and placed seventh.^[4]

Macquet first broke 80 metres in 1957,^[2] and remained one of the world's top throwers for the next few years, improving his results slowly but steadily.^[1] However, he continued to disappoint in major championships;^[1] although Track & Field News ranked him in the world's top ten in every year from 1956 to 1961 and in the world's top two three times, he never won a medal at either the Olympics or the European Championships.^[1][5] At the 1958 European ChampionshipsinStockholm he placed fourth with a throw of 75.18 m, only eight centimetres behind bronze medalist Gergely Kulcsár of Hungary.^[6] Macquet failed to qualify for the final at the 1960 OlympicsinRome, but was still ranked second in the world that year by Track & Field News.^[4][5] In 1961 Macquet set his personal best, 83.36 m, and was ranked first in the world.^[1][2][5]

After 1961 Macquet was never ranked in the world's top 10 again,^[5] but still competed in his third Olympic Games in 1964, again failing to qualify for the final.^[1][4] He won the national javelin title for a tenth and final time in 1965.^[1]