 Burrell at the 2000 Olympics | |||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | (1973-11-01)November 1, 1973 (age 52) Philadelphia,Pennsylvania, U.S. | ||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||
| Sport | Long jump | ||||||||||||||
| College team | University of Houston | ||||||||||||||
Medal record
| |||||||||||||||
Dawn C. Burrell (born November 1, 1973) is an American chef and retiredlong jumper. She won the gold medal at the2001 IAAF World Indoor Championships[1] and represented the United States at the2000 Summer Olympics. In her culinary career, she was a semifinalist in 2020 for aJames Beard Foundation Award. Burrell is the younger sister of former 100 m world record holderLeroy Burrell.[2]
Burrell attendedPenn Wood High School and enjoyed her first athletic successes in 1991 when she won fourPennsylvania state titles in the jumps andhurdles and won abronze medal at the United States Junior Championships.[2] She initially started out in the100 meter hurdles and reached the event final at the1992 World Junior Championships in Athletics.[3] Burrell gradually began to focus more on thelong jump and it was in this event that she made her first senior international appearance, taking fifth place in the final at the1995 Pan American Games. She represented theUniversity of Houston at theNCAA Track and Field Championships from 1993 to 1995 and was graduated the following year.[2]
In 1997 she won the long jump title at theUSA Indoor Track and Field Championships, and repeated the feat the following year with a personal best jump of 6.92 meters.[4] That year she also set an outdoor best of 6.90 m and took the bronze at theUSA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. She came fourth at the1998 Goodwill Games (two centimeters off third-placedNiki Xanthou) and competed at the1998 IAAF Grand Prix Final, where she finished eighth.[2]
Burrell was runner-up toShana Williams at the national indoor championships, but still was selected for the1999 IAAF World Indoor Championships and she finished eighth in the long jump final.[5] She won her first and only outdoor American title with a personal record of 6.96 m inEugene, Oregon.[6] She reached the long jump final at the1999 World Championships in Athletics alongside fellow AmericansMarion Jones and Shana Williams. Burrell finished sixth at what would be her first and only appearance on the outdoor world stage.[2][5]
In 2000, she was the runner up at theUnited States Olympic Track and Field Trials, jumping a wind-assisted 6.97 m and earning selection for the upcomingSummer Olympics.[2] In August, she set an outdoor career best mark of 6.98 m to win the long jump at theDN Galan meeting inStockholm.[7] Representing the United States at the2000 Sydney Olympics, she reached the event final as the third best qualifier behindHeike Drechsler and Marion Jones, having cleared 6.77 m; however, Burrell could not match her earlier form and ended the competition final with a sole legal jump of 6.38 m, finishing in tenth place.[8] She closed her season with asilver medal in the long jump at the2000 IAAF Grand Prix Final, where she had a wind-assisted jump of 6.99 m behind Drechsler.[9] She also ran in the 100 m hurdles at the competition and was seventh in the final.[5]
The 2001 season held significant career highs and lows for the athlete. She started the year by taking her third U.S. Indoor title in the long jump.[4] She was chosen to compete at the2001 IAAF World Indoor Championships inLisbon, Portugal. Burrell gave the greatest performance of her career with a jump of 7.03 m – her first time over the seven-meter mark. This was enough to win thegold medal some five centimeters ahead of the defending champion, Russian athleteTatyana Kotova.[1] The jump brought Burrell into the top ten long jumpers on the all-time indoor lists and made her the second best American indoors, behindJackie Joyner-Kersee.[10] She began preparing for the outdoor season, but suffered ananterior cruciate ligament injury to her knee in April which ruled her out for the entire season. The injury effectively ended her career as she competed sparingly thereafter but never again won a national title.[2][5]
After retiring from her athletic career, Burrell turned to the food world, enrolling atthe Art Institute of Houston to study culinary arts.[11] Her first restaurant jobs included working for chefTom Aikens in London and Monica Pope in Houston.[11] She next went to work forTyson Cole at the restaurant Uchi's Houston location, then became sous chef at Uchi’s sister restaurant inAustin, Uchiko.[11] From there, Burrell became executive chef at Kulture, a Houston restaurant focused on dishes of theAfrican diaspora, described as “global comfort” food.[12][11] For her work at Kulture, Burrell was a semifinalist for aJames Beard Foundation Award for “Best Chef: Texas” in 2020.[13] She left the role following the outbreak of theCOVID-19 pandemic; at the time, she was caring for her mother who had recently had a stroke and the COVID exposure involved in working in a restaurant would have endangered her.[12]
Burrell appeared as a contestant on theCutthroat Kitchen episode "Fowl Play," the "Knife Strife" episode ofChopped, and theMan vs. Master: Chef Battle episode "Dim Sum You Lose Sum". She competed onTop Chef: Portland, which aired in 2021.[11] She finished in the top three, making it to the season finale.[14] Burrell said of her success on the show, “My platform is extremely important […] I’m happy to reveal on national TV that Black women can cook at a high level. Let’s normalize it.”[14] She then returned forTop Chef: World All-Stars, which aired in 2023, but was eliminated in the second episode.[15]
