Karen Tellinghuisen

Karen Tellinghuisen
Karen Tellinghuisen
b. 1958

Category
Track & Field
Year Inducted
2024
“Falconer Girl Wins Javelin In World Games” read the headline in the Jamestown Post-Journal of July 22, 1977. “Karen Wins Gold Medal” was the headline in the Buffalo Evening News article.

The subject of the these two stories, and others like them that were picked up in various newspapers across the country affiliated with United Press International (UPI) news agency, was a strawberry-blond, 18-year-old from Falconer, NY, who won a Gold Medal in the javelin at the World Olympics Games for the Deaf in Bucharest, Romania. Karen Tellinguisen’s throw of 127 feet, 3 inches was 2 feet farther than Monika Laux of West Germany.

Karen’s accomplishments began at birth. The daughter of Rachel and Edward Tellinghuisen, she was born August 26, 1958, three months premature, along with a stillborn twin, and only weighed 2 pounds, 14 ounces. She spent the first 67 days of her life in WCA Hospital.

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