Johan Fourie, Date of Birth

Johan Fourie

South African middel distance runner

Date of Birth: 02-Dec-1959

Profession: athletics competitor

Nationality: South Africa

Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius

Johan Fourie (born December 2, 1959 in Springs) is a South African middle-distance athlete who was one of the world's leading 1500m/mile exponents in the 1980s but was prevented from competing internationally in his prime by reason of the sporting sanctions imposed on South Africa in condemnation of the policy of apartheid. Fourie's best 1500m performance was 3:33.87, a time recorded at the SA Championships in Stellenbosch in 1987 without significant opposition or pacemakers and his best mile time was 3:50.82 recorded in also 1987.
During the mid-1980s he trained with Swiss star Pierre Délèze in Europe.
Délèze, who defeated Sebastian Coe over 1500m in Zurich in 1985 believe that Fourie was capable of running a sub 3:30 1500m given the appropriate race conditions He was raised in Vereeniging in Gauteng Province where he attended school and won his first national 1500m in 1979 while still a junior. Prevented from competing on international stage, he nevertheless managed to entertain athletics followers in the 1980s which has been characterised as a golden age of South African middle and long distance running.
Apart from running more than 50 sub-four miles, he also ran two sub-four miles in one hour and in 1984 was awarded the Beinart award by the South African Athletics Statisticians for being the top ranked South African athlete in the world in 1983.