FACTOIDS
Full Name: Eunice Barber
Nickname: Eunice
Birthday: November 17, 1974
Height: 5’7’’
Hometown: Freetown, Sierra Leone
Sports: Track & Field
PROFILE
Eunice Barber has had quite a varied athletics career, competing in a number of events for two different countries. Competing initially for her native Sierra Leone, Barber made an unspectacular Olympic debut in 1992 at Barcelona in the heptathlon and 100m hurdles. She failed to finish the heptathlon at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart, but in the following World Championships at Gothenburg in 1995, she produced personal bests in six of the heptathlon events to sensationally place fourth. Eunice finished fifth in the heptathlon at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, but failed to qualify for the final of the long jump, in which she was starting to specialise. Although she had lived in France from 1992, Barber continued to compete for Sierra Leone until she became a French citizen in February 1999. Despite setting a French long jump record of 7.01m on 21 July 1999, Barber decided to only contest the heptathlon at the World Championships in Seville the following month. At Seville, on 21-22 August, Eunice had a monumental tussle with Denise Lewis (Great Britain), with Barber eventually emerging the victor with a new French record of 6861 points. In 2000, Barber recorded the year's best score of 6842 points, but her rematch with Lewis at the Olympic Games in Sydney turned into a bit of an anticlimax due to an injury that Eunice was carrying that caused her to withdraw after five events. Lewis withdrew from the heptathlon at the 2001 World Championships in Edmonton, leaving Barber as the overwhelming favourite for victory. Eunice had a sizeable lead after two events, but she then committed an inconceivable error for a world-class athlete, by foot-faulting all three of her shot put attempts, thus ending her hopes of defending her world title.
