Barry King

Educated at Abbotsfield School, Hillingdon, Barry King took up serious athletics at the age of 15 and two years later attracted attention when he won the Intermediate Boys’ Shot Put title at the 1962 Middlesex Schools Championships at the White City. In capturing the title, he broke the competition record by nearly 13 ft (4m). A month later he would become the discus and shot champion at the Southern Youth Championships, and then won both titles at the London Schools Championships.

King made his international début in 1963 and announced that year that he wanted to go to the United States to study physics, and further his athletics career. He was subsequently offered a track and field scholarship at the University of Colorado. He returned to the UK in 1966 to finish second to Bill Tancred in the AAA shot. By 1970, King was specialising in the decathlon and he won another AAA silver medal that year when second to Peter Gabbett. At that year’s British Commonwealth Games King won decathlon bronze. Another return trip to the UK in 1972 saw King win the AAA decathlon title that had eluded him, when he beat defending champion David Kidner into second place. King was selected for the München Olympics that year, and in 1974 he went to Christchurch, New Zealand, for the British Commonwealth Games, and won the silver medal behind Northern Ireland’s Mike Bull.

King later became Associate Dean of Students at the University of California, San Diego. In 1977, along with friend and training partner Bill Toomey, the pair founded the sports marketing company “Sports Directions”. They developed Olympic sports programmes for clients around the world including for the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee. When Toomey set a new decathlon world record 8,417 points at Los Angeles in 1969, King finished third – a long way behind Toomey.

King joined the US Olympic Committee (USOC) in 1987 and was Director of Marketing Communications for 14 years. During his time in office, he secured funding for many US Olympic teams, as well as organizing finance for the 1996 Atlanta and 2002 Salt Lake City Games.

After leaving the USOC in 2001, King founded “Outdoor-Fitness”, a company that installed outdoor exercise equipment into schools, and other important establishments. He was also a board member of the San Diego-based Pharmaceutical Manufacturing company, “Imagenetix”. King also wrote, or co-wrote several books, including the USOC’s two-book series entitled “The Olympic Challenge”. As a youngster, King was a keen amateur astronomer.

Personal Best: Dec – 7500 (1972).