Thane Baker

Walter Thane Baker (born October 4, 1931) is a former American athlete and winner of the gold medal in the 4x100 m relay at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, with a new world record of 39.5 seconds. At those Olympics Baker also won a silver medal in the 100-meter and a bronze in the 200-meter. At the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, he won a silver medal in the 200-meter.

Baker was born in Elkhart, Kansas. In 1953, as a Kansas State University student, Baker won the NCAA championship in the convert|220|yd, and in 1956 he won the AAU championships in 200 m. Baker also won numerous conference titles at Kansas State, and was a four-time All American.

Before the Melbourne Olympics, Baker equaled Jesse Owens's long-standing 100 m world record time of 10.2 seconds, and also twice equaled the 200 m world record of 20.6.

Baker is enshrined in the USATF Masters Hall of Fame [http://www.usatf.org/HallOfFame/Masters/] and the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame [http://www.kshof.org/hof-profiles.cfm?record_id=4] .

He also has a track named after him in his home town of Elkhart, Kansas