Bruno Brokken was the 1975
Belgian Sportsman of the year, ending the six consecutive titles for
Eddy Merckx. He tried his hand at other sports like
soccer,
basketball and especially
judo before starting with
athletics. He quit as a judoka when he was 15 years old with a
brown belt when his father founded Wilrijk Atletiek Club, an athletics club. After trying his hand at the
javelin, he switched to the high jump. A year later, he jumped over 2.04 metres using the
straddle technique. Only seventeen years old, he won the Belgian Championships in 1971. He finished in 8th place in the final of the
1974 European Championships in Athletics in
Rome. 1975 saw him break the Belgian indoor record with 2.21 metres and the Belgian outdoor record with 2.24 metres. After winning bronze at the 1976 European Indoors, he was selected for the
1976 Summer Olympics in
Montreal, but did not compete due to a last minute knee injury. An operation on his knee failed, and his sports career was over when he was only 23 years old. ==References==