Maurice Greene
This fall on “Dancing with the Stars,” Olympic gold medalist Maurice Greene will be paired with another winner – two time champion Cheryl Burke. Will Greene be able to bring home the gold as a dancer?
Maurice Greene was born in Kansas City, Kansas on July 23, 1974. Greene started running in fourth grade, even competing against and beating fifth graders. He played footfall at F.L. Schlagel High School, but also ran track and field. He won three Kansas high school state meets in the 100 and 200 meter sprint double events.
Realizing he excelled at track and field rather than football, Greene went to the 1995 World Championships, but was eliminated. He failed to make the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, but didn’t give up. He moved to Los Angeles to train with sprint coach John Smith and fellow sprinters Jon Drummond and Ato Boldon. The training and hard work paid off. At the World Championships in 1997, he won the 100 meter title, which he defended in 1999 and 2001. At the 1999 World Championships, he also took home the gold for the 200 meter and the 4×100 meter relay. This made him the first man to win both the 100 meter and the 200 meter events at the World Championships. He set the 100 meter world record in 1999 at 9.79 seconds. This record was beat by Tim Montgomery in 2002, but after a disqualification due to performance enhancing drugs, the record was reinstated. It was broken legally in 2005 by Asafa Powell,
At the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Greene would win a gold medal in the 100 meter and the 4×100 meter relay events. At the Athens 2004 Summer Games, Greene added a bronze medal in the 100 meter and a silver medal in the 4×100 relay to his Olympic accomplishments. Greene announced his retirement from competitive track and field due to injuries in February 2008. His press release about his retirement read in part “It’s a little sad for me but it’s happy at the same time because I’ve had a great career. I’ve done a lot of great things. For the last couple of years, I’ve had nagging injuries that have stropped my training. So I think it’s better to just call it quits.” Both coaching and business projects are planned in his future.
Greene already has some personal exposure to reality television. He appeared on the NBC game show “Identity” in 2006. He also made an appearance on “Blind Date.” For a while, he dated Claudia Jones, a case holder from “Deal or No Deal.”
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