PODCAST - No Holds Barred Interview with Tyree Washington

Last Updated on November 16, 2012 by Jimson Lee

Last year, Tasha Danvers interviewed Tyree Washington on her radio show. Great Britain’s Natasha “Tasha” Danvers is the Olympic bronze medalist from the 400m Hurdles at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

It’s a long interview, almost 90 minutes long (you may want to fast forward the first four minutes).

Tyree Washington has a special place in my books which is why I connected with him on Facebook.

Outside of track, he went through a lot of personal hardship. More than I could ever imagined.

On the track, he was destined to be the “next Michael Johnson” in the post-Michael Johnson era. Those are big (golden) shoes to fill!

More recently, he lost the 4×400 World Record because of Antonio Pettigrew’s PED confession. Just because you don’t have 3 or 4 sub 44 second quarter milers doesn’t mean you can’t break the world record!

Timeline

His breakthrough year was 1997 with a 44.38 in Zurich, followed by the (now annulled) 1998 4×400 world record at the Goodwill Games (2:54.20).

He missed the Olympic Games in 2000, but bounced back in 2003 with a World Indoor title, and a USA Outdoor championship title in 44.33. He finished 2nd at the IAAF Paris World Championships to Jerome Young, but was later upgraded to Gold. His 4x400m relay Gold was also stripped because of PED use from one of his teammates.

He again missed the OG in 2004 but bounced back in 2005 with a win at the World Athletics Final in 44.51.

You can strip all the medals in the world from this guy, but he keeps on bouncing back. Even outside the track.