Javier Culson

Javier Culson Prez is a Puerto Rican athlete and Olympic bronze medalist who specialises in the 400 metre hurdles. After becoming involved with the discipline in his late teen years, he entered the podium in some regional youth events, including the Pan American Junior Athletics Championships. Culson is a twotime silver medallist at the International Association of Athletics Federationss World Championships and an elite contender in the Samsung Diamond League, where he finished second overall in 2011. He has also garnished medals in events with lower profiles, including the Central American and Caribbean Games and the IberoAmerican Championships. He currently holds the record as the worlds fastest man in that category. Culson also competed at the 2012 Olympics in London winning the bronze medal in the 400metre hurdles race.

Culson Prez was born in Barrio Playa, Ponce, Puerto Rico, onJuly 1984, to Seor Culson and Judith Prez. One of four siblings, along Javier Ramn Antonio, Judith Marie and Mary Caridad, he was raised solely by his mother in his native Playa de Ponce. Since his birth and throughout his childhood, Culson was a sickly child, suffering from gastritis due to a pronounced line in his abdomen, which limited the types of food that he could eat. This condition, along with an asthma diagnosis, forced him to spend a considerable amount of time in hospitals during his upbringing and extending into his teenager years. To deal with Culsons health and attend to her other children, Judith Prez left her established job as a nurse at Hospital Oncolgico Andrs Grillasca in Ponce and began taking odd jobs, such as babysitting and ironing clothes.

Source: Wikipedia