Matt Hemingway Monument - Buena Vista, CO
Posted by: 
Outspoken1
N 38° 49.908 W 106° 07.593
13S E 402218 N 4298714
This monument to Silver medalist Matt Hemingway is found in Buena Vista, Colorado, USA. The monument infers that Hemingway was a native and earned the medal in kayaking-he only worked as a whitewater rafting tour guide and was a high jumper!
Waymark Code: WMJ700
Location: Colorado, United States
Date Posted: 10/04/2013
Views: 8
"Matt Hemingway (born October 24, 1972) is an American track and field athlete. He won a silver medal in the high jump at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens by clearing a height of 2.34 meters (7 ft 8 in). Reflecting on this he said: "I'm ecstatic about winning the silver. You don’t lose gold medals. People win them. I won a silver and Stefan Holm won a gold." His personal best jump came at the 2000 US Indoor Championship where he leaped 2.38 m (7 ft 9¾ in). He jumps off of his left leg. [snip]
In 2004, at the (relatively advanced) age of 31, he finally earned a place on the US Olympic Team with a jump of 2.30 (7 ft 6.5 in) in the Trials. At the Olympics in Athens, he easily cleared the (automatic) qualifying height of 2.20 to reach the finals. In the finals on 22 August, Hemingway began jumping at 2.20 and was perfect (no misses) through 2.34. Four men cleared that height, including American teammate Jamie Nieto. As the bar was raised 2 centimeters to 2.34, Hemingway was in first place by virtue of being the only jumper with a perfect record. But when Sweden's Stefan Holm was the only jumper to scale 2.36, Hemingway was awarded the silver and Jaroslav Baba took the bronze (because of two misses at 2.32). For Hemingway, the 2.34 matched his personal best outdoors.
He is related to the famous writer Ernest Hemingway. Along with his wife, he has adopted one Ethiopian child and plan to adopt another. In the future, he and his wife plan to adopt a couple of other children. Hemingway and his wife appeared in the episode "Making Room" (season 3, episode 3) of the HGTV television show Carter Can with Carter Oosterhouse. The show highlights their attempt to make room for their first adopted child.
In his past, Hemingway was a guide for whitewater rafting company Noah's Ark Whitewater Rafting and Adventure in Buena Vista, CO, manager for a cellular phone store, technical engineer for a wireless carrier (he worked full-time while training for a chance at the Olympics)." (from (
visit link) )
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