Derrick R. Adkins (born July 2, 1970) is a former American athlete, winner of 400 m hurdles at the 1996 Summer Olympics. July 2 is the 183rd day of the year (184th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 182 days remaining. ... 1970 was a common year starting on Thursday. ... Athletics, also known as track and field or track and field athletics, is a collection of sport events. ... The metre (American spelling: meter), symbol: m, is the basic unit of distance (or of length, in the parlance of the physical sciences) in the International System of Units. ... The 1996 Summer Olympics, formally known as the Games of the XXVI Olympiad and informally known as the Centennial Olympics, were held in 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. ...

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Derrick Adkins rose into the international athletics scene in 1991, when he finished third at the US National Championships and qualified to the 1991 World Championships, where he finished in the sixth place. For other meanings, see Brooklyn (disambiguation). ... 1991 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The 1991 World Championships in Athletics under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations were held in the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, Japan between August 23 and September 1. ...

Adkins won the World Student Games in 1991 and 1993 and finished seventh at the 1993 World Championships. Adkins made a rapid improvement in 1994, when he won his first US National Championships. He repeated this win in the next year and at the 1995 World Championships he was already a main favourite to the gold medal. At Gothenburg, Adkins won his heat easily and in the final he won the gold narrowly ahead of his career long rival Samuel Matete from Zambia. 1993 is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ... The 1993 World Championships in Athletics under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations were held in the Gottlieb Daimler Stadium, Stuttgart, Germany between August 13 and United States of America 13 8 4 25 2. ... 1994 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ... The 1995 World Championships in Athletics under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations were held at the Ullevi Stadium, Gothenburg, Sweden between August 5 and August 13. ... Gothenburg (Swedish: Göteborg  listen ) is a city and a municipality on the western coast of Sweden, in the County of Västra Götaland. ...

Prior to the Atlanta Olympics, Matete beat Adkins in four races out of five, but at the Olympic Games itself Adkins turned the tables on Matete, winning in a time of 47.54 and beating Matete to a second place by 0.24 seconds. City nickname(s): The A-T-L, The Horizon City, The Capital of the South, The Phoenix City, The City Too Busy to Hate, Hotlanta, A-Town, The Big A, The New York of the South County Fulton County, Georgia Area  - Total  - Water 343. ... For months before the Olympic Games, runners relay the Olympic Flame from Olympia to the opening ceremony. ...

In 1997, Adkins was second at the US National Championships, but missed the final for the first time at a World Championships by finishing only fifth at the semi-final. Adkins currently is a track coach at Columbia University in New York. 1997 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...