Kibwe Johnson
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 17, 1981 |
| Height | 1.88 m (6 ft 2 in) |
| Weight | 107 kg (236 lb) |
| Sport | |
| Country |
 United States
|
| Sport | Athletics |
| Event(s) | Hammer throw |
| Updated on 22 July 2015. | |
Kibwé Johnson (born July 17, 1981) is an American Olympic track and field athlete who specializes in the hammer throw. He has represented his country at the World Championships in Athletics three times (2007, 2011, and 2015). Competed in the 2012 London Olympics where he made the final and finished 9th. No American had made the final since 1996. Johnson competed in 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
He is a three-time medalist at the Pan American Games, having taken silver in 2007 and improved to the gold in 2011 (where he broke the Games record), and then repeated in 2015 in Toronto. He set his personal best of 80.31 meters (263 ft 5.8 in) in 2011. He was the 2011 USA Outdoor Champion in the hammer throw and the 2008 USA Indoor Champion in the weight throw where he recorded the second best mark in US history.
Born in San Francisco, he initially started as a discus thrower, before starting to focus more on the hammer while studying at the University of Georgia. Johnson performed poorly academically and later moved to Moorpark Junior College in Moorpark, California before finishing at Ashland University where he later graduated and represented them in NCAA Division II competitions. He competed at the 2004 United States Olympic Trials in both the discus and hammer, placing eighth and 19th respectively. He placed third in the weight throw at the 2005 USA Indoor Track and Field Championships and threw a best of 24.54 meters (80 ft 6.25 in) at the Oiler Open meet – a distance which ranked him as the third best American and eleventh best ever in the history of the event. A personal record hammer throw of 78.25 m in May saw him rank third nationally that year. He was the runner-up in the weight throw at the 2006 USA Indoors, then finished in fourth place in the hammer throw at the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships later that year.
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