Amy Acuff Biography




Amy Acuff
extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Amy Acuff
Amy Acuff Valence 2008.jpg
Acuff at the 2008 World Indoor Championships
Personal information
Full name Amy Lyn Acuff
Nationality American
Date of birth July 14, 1975 (1975-07-14) (age 34)
Place of birth Port Arthur, Texas
Height 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)
Weight 145 lb (66 kg)
Sport
Country  United States
Sport Track and field athletics
Event(s) High jump
Club UCLA Bruins
Team USA Track & Field
Achievements and titles
Worlds See table
National finals Outdoor: 1995, 1997, 2001, 2003–2005
Indoor: 2001, 2004–2008
Olympics 2004
Highest world ranking 2nd (2001 Grand Prix)
3rd (2006 World Cup)
Personal best(s) 2.01 m (6 ft 7 in)
August 15, 2003

Amy Lyn Acuff (born July 14, 1975, Port Arthur, Texas) is a track and field athlete from the United States. A high jump specialist, she competed in the 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008 Summer Olympics as a member of USA Track and Field. Her best Olympic performance came at the 2004 Games, where her jump of 1.99 m earned her fourth place in the final.

She established herself domestically with wins at the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in 1995 and 1997. At the age of 22, she became the Universiade champion, edging out Monica Iagăr in the 1997 high jump final. Acuff was the winner of the 1998 Hochsprung mit Musik meeting in Arnstadt, Germany, becoming the first non-European winner in the history of the event. She went on to win at the national championships in 2001, 2003, and 2005.

Her personal best is 2.01 m, which she achieved in Zürich on August 15, 2003.

Contents

Competition record

  • National Scholastic Indoor Champion: 1991, 1992
  • Pan-Am Junior Champion: 1993
  • NCAA Indoor Champion: 1994, 1995, 1997
  • NCAA Outdoor Champion: 1995, 1996
  • U.S. Outdoor Champion: 1995–1997, 2001–2007
  • U.S. Indoor Champion: 2001, 2004, 2007–2008
International events (finalist or qualifier)
Event Rank Height
(m)		 Location Date
World Junior Championships 9 1.85 Seoul 1992-09-19
World Championships 8 1.93 Gothenburg 1995-08-13
World University Games 1 Sicily 1997-08
World Championships 6 1.92 Athens 1997-08-08
IAAF Grand Prix Final 6 1.93 Fukuoka 1997-09-13
World Championships 9 1.93 Seville 1999-08-29
Summer Olympics 17 1.80 Sydney 2000-09-28
World Indoor Championships 4 1.96 Lisbon 2001-03-09
World Championships 10 1.90 Edmonton 2001-08-12
IAAF Grand Prix Final 2 1.96 Melbourne 2001-09-09
World Indoor Championships 10 1.92 Birmingham 2003-03-16
World Championships 9 1.90 Saint-Denis 2003-08-31
Summer Olympics 4 1.99 Athens 2004-08-28
IAAF World Athletics Final 6 1.95 Monaco 2004-09-18
World Championships 8 1.89 Helsinki 2005-08-08
World Indoor Championships 13 1.90 Moscow 2006-03-11
IAAF World Athletics Final 5 1.94 Stuttgart 2006-09-09
IAAF World Cup 3 1.94 Athens 2006-09-17
World Championships 12 1.94 Osaka 2007-09-02
IAAF World Athletics Final 5 1.94 Stuttgart 2007-09-22
World Indoor Championships 6 1.95 Valencia 2008-03-09
Summer Olympics 9 1.89 Beijing 2008-08-21

Modeling

Acuff is also known for her career as a model. She organized the 2000 Omni Lite Millennium Calendar of Champions, featuring nude (or semi-nude) photos of Acuff and 11 other U.S. female track and field stars, with half the proceeds going to the Florence Griffith-Joyner Foundation.

Acuff's cover appearances include:

  • The 2004 Olympics were noted for the large number of female Olympians who posed nude—following in the footsteps of the 2000 Matildas and the Omni calendar. Of the 2004 examples the most visible was Acuff's appearance on the cover and within Playboy's, “The Women of the Olympics” issue.12

Personal life

Acuff graduated from Calallen High School in Corpus Christi, Texas. She attended UCLA and was inducted into the UCLA Bruins Hall of Fame in 2007.

She is distantly related to country musician Roy Acuff (her grandfather’s second cousin).4

References

  1. ^ O'Conner, Ian (August 13, 2004). "Posing for magazines: Athlete or sexual plaything?". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/oconnor/2004-08-13-oconnor_x.htm. 
  2. ^ Boswell, Laura (October 13, 2004). "Olympians posing nude, poses questions". ESPN. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page3/story?page=boswell/040823. 
  3. ^ Wallechinsky, David; Jaime Loucky (May 2008). The Complete Book of the Olympics: 2008 Edition. Aurum Press. ISBN 978-1845133306. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1845133307. 
  4. ^ Acuff-Ecoff Family Archives

External links

Sporting positions
Preceded by
United States Angie Bradburn		 USA National High Jump Champion
1995		 Succeeded by
United States Tisha Waller
Preceded by
United States Tisha Waller		 USA National High Jump Champion
1997		 Succeeded by
United States Tisha Waller
Preceded by
United States Karol Damon		 USA National High Jump Champion
2001		 Succeeded by
United States Tisha Waller
Preceded by
United States Tisha Waller		 USA National High Jump Champion
2003		 Succeeded by
United States Tisha Waller
Preceded by
United States Tisha Waller		 USA National High Jump Champion
2005		 Succeeded by
United States Chaunte Howard


v • d • e
Summer Universiade Champions in Women's High Jump

 1959 – 1961: Iolanda Balaş (ROM) •  1963: Taisiya Chenchik (URS) •  1965: Yordanka Blagoeva (BUL) •  1967: Mami Takeda (JPN) •  1970: Snezana Hrepevnik (YUG) •  1973: Virginia Ioan (ROM) •  1975: Galina Filatova (URS) •  1977: Sara Simeoni (ITA) •  1979: Andrea Mátay (HUN) •  1981: Sara Simeoni (ITA) •  1983: Tamara Bykova (URS) •  1985: Silvia Costa (CUB) •  1987: Svetlana Isaeva (BUL) •  1989: Alina Astafei (ROM) •  1991: Alison Inverarity (AUS) •  1993: Tanya Hughes (USA) •  1995: Viktoriya Fyodorova (RUS) •  1997: Amy Acuff (USA) •  1999: Monica Iagăr (ROM) •  2001: Vita Palamar (UKR) •  2003: Dóra Győrffy (HUN) •  2005: Anna Chicherova (RUS) •  2007: Marina Aitova (KAZ) •  2009: Ariane Friedrich (GER)