Alfredo Jadresic

Alfredo Jadresic was one of Chile’s top high jumpers in the second half of the 1940s, but he began his international career in the shadow of Carlos Altamirano, who later went on to become a prominent politician in his home country. Alatmirano was the winner of the high jump at the unofficial 1946 South American Championships, a contest where Jadresic placed third. Their rankings were reversed in this tournament the following year, however, and thus Jardesic was selected to represent Chile at the 1948 London Olympics, where he placed in joint-ninth. At that year’s unofficial South American Championships, he was third behind Hércules Azcune and Pedro Listur, both of Uruguay, and he repeated that result in 1949, with Geraldo de Oliveira in second instead of Listur.

During his athletic career, Jadresic was a medical student and he eventually came to specialize in endocrinology. Upon completing his studies, he joined the University of Chile Faculty of Medicine as a professor and rose through the administrative ranks, eventually serving as Dean from 1969 through 1973. During the regime of Augusto Pinochet, Jadresic lived in exile in England, where he worked as a researcher at the University of Oxford, and did not return to his homeland until 1990.

Personal Best: HJ – 1.95 (1947).