Getty
21 March 2013
Former 200 metres world-record holder and Olympic champion Pietro Mennea has died at the age of 60.
The Italian set a 200m world best of 19.72sec in Mexico City in 1979, a mark that remained unbeaten until Michael Johnson ran 19.66sec at the 1996 United States Olympic trials. However, Mennea’s time is still the best by a European.
He won gold at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, as well as a 4x400m relay bronze.
The Italian Olympic Committee said: “Italian sport is in mourning.”
The organisation’s president Giovanni Malago announced that Mennea’s body would lie in state at Olympic committee headquarters.
Mennea was in a Rome clinic but no cause of death has been given.
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