DAVID BAILEY

The Faculty was saddened to learn of the loss of former Olympian and U of T Sports Hall of Fame inductee Dr. David George Bailey, who passed away peacefully at his home in London, ON, on August 27, 2022.

Bailey, who was a member of the Varsity Blues track and field team from 1964 to 1967, achieved many highly regarded accomplishments both on and off the track.

At 17 years old, he set the world record in the mile for his age group with a time of 4:07.5. He went on to live one of his greatest achievements in 1966, when he became the first Canadian to run a sub four-minute mile, recording a time of 3:59.1 at a meet in San Diego. He topped that time a year later, running 3:57.7 in Toronto.

He competed for Canada at the 1967 Pan American Games in Winnipeg, where he won a bronze medal in the 1,500m. He also represented his country with great pride at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico.

As a Varsity Blue, Bailey was a two-time winner of the Ontario University Athletics Association’s (OUAA) one-mile race, a two-time winner of the one-mile relay, as well as a gold medalist in the three-mile and 880-yard races. He was also a member of the three-time champion cross-country team that won both the OUAA and Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union (CIAU) titles. In 1998, he was inducted into the U of T Sports Hall of Fame.

Away from the track, Bailey was a recognized pharmacologist who pioneered the research of grapefruit–drug interactions. — KB