Miguel de la Quadra-Salcedo, Spanish journalist and athlete, Died at 84

  Sports

Miguel de la Quadra-Salcedo y Gayarre was born on April 30, 1932, and died on May 20, 2016.

He was a Spanish reporter and Olympic athlete.

Miguel de la Quadra-Salcedo was the director and founder of cultural program Aventura 92 (Adventures 92), nowadays named as Ruta Quetzal BBVA.

Even though Miguel was born in Madrid, he was always recognized as Basque-Navarre.

While he lived in Pamplona, he studied to be an agricultural expert and stood out as a great athlete.

During the mid-50s, Miguel and the pitcher of the Basque Bar, Félix Erausquin together invented how to adapt that instrument to throw the javelin.

Positioning the way of the disk or hammer, pitcher turns on itself before throwing.

After he trained vigorously, Miguel de la Quadra-Salcedo presented the “Spanish style” of throwing the javelin.

The method proved to work effectively in 1956, which added 20 meters to the world record, which at the time was around 80.

But, that record was never approved by the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations).

Critics concluded that it was too dangerous for the public because during the rotation the javelin tip was focused to them.

He was nine times champion of Spain in the javelin, hammer and discus, being able to compete in the 1960 Rome Olympics and world record javelin with original art-based launch of the Basque-bar was not approved by the international federation.

From 1961 to 1963, Miguel worked for the Colombian government as ethnography in the Amazon region.

Later Miguel became a reporter for TVE staff, where would cover wars such as the Congo, Vietnam, Eritrea and Mozambique and events such as the death of Che Guevara (1967) or the Pinochet coup in Chile (1973).

Personalities such as Salvador Allende, Pablo Neruda, Indira Gandhi, Haile Selassie, Norodom Sihanouk, Yassir Arafat and the Dalai Lama are among the many interviewed by him in his era.

After Miguel retired from sport, he started in the journalism field.

Miguel became one of the most distinguish national TV characters.

Miguel de la Quadra-Salcedo y Gayarre was one of the great reporters of RTVE during the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s

Miguel de la Quadra-Salcedo passed away at 84 yrs old.