Current Biography Excerpts: Track and Field

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AOUITA, SAID
BUBKA, SERGEI
CLAIBORNE, LORETTA
DECKER, MARY
DEVERS, GAIL
GRIFFITH JOYNER, FLORENCE
JOHNSON, BEN
JOHNSON, MICHAEL
LEWIS, CARL
MOSES, EDWIN
O'BRIEN, DAN
POWELL, MIKE
SALAZAR, ALBERTO
THOMPSON, DALEY
TORRENCE, GWEN

AOUITA, SAID
(ah-WEE-tah, sah-EED)
Nov. 2, 1960- Moroccan runner.

Considered by many track and field experts to be the most versatile runner who has ever lived, the Moroccan Said Aouita holds the current world record in five running events: the 1,500, 2,000, 3,000, and 5,000 meters and the two miles. He is also a two-time Olympic medalist who captured the gold in the 5,000 meters at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles and the bronze in the 800 meters at the 1988 Games in Seoul. A national hero in Morocco, Aouita has been treated for leg injuries by King Hassan II's personal physician, and his portrait hangs next to that of the king in many Moroccan shops and other public places.

Yet, in spite of his remarkable athletic ability, Said Aouita is viewed with disfavor by many in the running community because of his boastfulness and blatant self-aggrandizement. He often belittles other top middle-distance runners and, after breaking his own world record in the 5,000 meters in 1987, publicly proclaimed himself "the greatest runner in the world." A fierce competitor, Aouita, according to the British runner Steve Ovett, "approaches the sport with an almost religious fervor" and is "the only guy...who gets disappointed when he only breaks three world records in a year." As Aouita told Kenny Moore during an interview for Sports Illustrated (June 23, 1986), "The evening before each meet, I don't tell myself I'm there to set a record, but that I am a Moroccan warrior who has to do battle."

Copyright © 1996 by The H. W. Wilson Co.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1990 Current Biography Yearbook.

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BUBKA, SERGEI
(BOOB-ka)
Dec. 4, 1963- Ukrainian pole-vaulter.

"I love the pole vault because it is a professor's sport," Sergei Bubka explained to Gary Smith for Sports Illustrated (September 14, 1988). "One must not only run and jump, but one must think. Which pole to use, which height to jump, which strategy to use. I love it because the results are immediate and the strongest is the winner. Everyone knows it. In everyday life that is difficult to prove." In the realm of track and field, the Ukrainian pole-vaulter Sergei Bubka has proved without question that he is the strongest and best at what he does. What he does is charge full speed toward a small landing pad and, precariously hanging onto the end of a thin, hollow, flexible, 17-foot fiberglass pole, propel himself feet first over a crossbar that is the height of a two-story building.

Since winning the 1983 world championships as an unknown, Bubka has dominated the pole vault. Setting the indoor and outdoor standards a total of 35 times, he has earned more track-and-field world records than anyone in history. He has racked up an unmatched total of five world championships but has only claimed one Olympic gold medal, at the 1988 Games. At the 1996 Atlanta Games, he will be attempting to atone for a dismal performance at the 1992 Olympics, at which he failed to clear a single bar--one of his few failures over the past 13 years. Bubka takes advantage of his excellent speed and tremendous strength to attack the vault in a way unlike that of any other competitor, using a pole made for a man much heavier and holding it closer to the end than anyone else dares. In a sport measured in quarter inches, Bubka's top leap--20 feet, 2 inches--is more than four inches higher than the next-best mark. "Here is a man who has personally altered his art form," Smith observed, "changed the way competitors prepare for it and perform it, even the way spectators perceive it."

Copyright © 1996 by The H. W. Wilson Co.

The complete article can be found in the July 1996 issue of Current Biography. An updated version of the article will appear on the 1983-1996 Current Biography CD-ROM ( released in January 1997) and in the 1996 Current Biography Yearbook (to be published in December 1996).

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CLAIBORNE, LORETTA
Aug. 14, 1953- Runner.

Named the Special Olympics Female Athlete of the Year by the United States Olympic Committee in 1988, the Special Olympics Athlete of the Quarter Century by Runner's World magazine in 1991, and the winner of the cable sports channel ESPN's Arthur Ashe Award for Courage in 1996, Loretta Claiborne is both a champion long-distance runner and a passionate advocate for the mentally retarded and the physically disabled. "My peers are seen as handicapped, but they are people who are very capable if given the chance," she has said. Claiborne's own accomplishments as an athlete and as a spokesperson for Special Olympics International provide powerful evidence for the validity of that assertion. Raised at home because her mother refused to commit her to an institution for the mentally retarded, she began running in her neighborhood as an adolescent. Since the early 1970s, when she became an active participant in Special Olympics, she has completed 25 marathons, finishing with the fastest 25 women runners in the Pittsburgh Marathon and twice with the top 100 women in the Boston race. She holds the Special Olympics record for the one-mile run, and she won the gold medal in the first-ever Special Olympics half-marathon, in 1991. She has also excelled in bowling and other sports.

In an effort to secure just treatment for the mentally and physically handicapped, Claiborne has spoken before many professional, business, and local groups. "All people must have the opportunity to learn," she has told her audiences. "All people have a God-given gift, and you must learn how to use that gift. All people want to be wanted and needed." Claiborne is the first person with mental retardation to serve on the Special Olympics International board of directors and the board of the Pennsylvania Special Olympics, and she is believed to be the first mentally challenged person ever to be awarded an honorary doctoral degree. At the 1995 graduation ceremonies at Quinnipiac College, in Hamden, Connecticut, at which she was thus honored, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the founder of Special Olympics and one of Claiborne's mentors, said, "I can think of no one who is more deserving of receiving recognition for their humanity and compassion than Loretta Claiborne. She is a true American heroine and is our hope and inspiration for the future. Her courage and vision have made the world a better place."

Copyright © 1996 by The H. W. Wilson Co.

The complete article can be found in the July 1996 issue of Current Biography. An updated version of the article will appear on the 1983-1996 Current Biography CD-ROM ( released in January 1997) and in the 1996 Current Biography Yearbook (to be published in December 1996).

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DECKER, MARY
Aug. 4, 1958- Runner.

For almost half of her twenty-five years, Mary Decker has been a champion middle-distance runner, stunning track fans and competitors alike with her seemingly effortless, long, loping strides, strong finishes, and tenacious determination. In a career marked by a series of remarkable recoveries from painful injuries, she has come to dominate her sport so completely that in 1982 she broke no less than seven world and American records at distances ranging from 800 to 10,000 meters. Unbeaten since 1980, she held, as of August 1983, the American records for the mile and for 800, 1,500, 3,000, 5,000, and 10,000 meters. With no serious rivals in the United States, Miss Decker's most frequent competitor is the clock.

Copyright © 1996 by The H. W. Wilson Co.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1983 Current Biography Yearbook.

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DEVERS, GAIL
(DEE-vuhrs)
Nov. 19, 1966- Sprinter; hurdler.

On August 1, 1992 Gail Devers outran seven other sprinters in the 100-meter race at the Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain to win a gold medal. While that in itself was an impressive achievement, what made Devers's victory all the more remarkable was that only 18 months earlier she had been so sickened by Graves' disease and a secondary skin condition that she could barely walk and feared that her feet would have to be amputated. "Seldom has the grand stage of the Olympics produced a winner who has won so much more than the medal she wore around her neck and the flowers she held on the victory podium," Michael Janofsky wrote in the New York Times (August 2, 1992). "With a time of 10.82 seconds, she stood as a beacon of hope, an example of fortitude to others who have suffered with the same kind of illness."

Devers's athletic career had come close to being over before it had really begun. After setting an American record in the 100-meter hurdles in May 1988, she began to feel ill, and she did not make the finals at the Summer Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea. For more than two years afterward, she suffered from a seemingly mysterious ailment that sapped her strength, weakened her muscles, attacked her skin, and caused her to lose both weight and hair. In the fall of 1990, a doctor diagnosed her illness as Graves' disease and prescribed appropriate treatment. By May 1991 Devers was running again, and she soon established herself as one of the fastest American sprinter/hurdlers ever, turning in dominating performances over the next two years. She holds the American record in the 100-meter hurdles at a mark of 12.46 seconds, and she has won 11 championship titles, seven in 1993 alone. Hampered by leg injuries for much of 1994 and 1995, Devers has set her sights on winning both the 100-meter sprint and 100-meter hurdles at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta. "The word 'quit' is not a part of my vocabulary," she has said. "I love the sport, and I want to continue to excel. I think that my best is yet to come."

Copyright © 1996 by The H. W. Wilson Co.

The complete article can be found in the July 1996 issue of Current Biography. An updated version of the article will appear on the 1983-1996 Current Biography CD-ROM ( released in January 1997) and in the 1996 Current Biography Yearbook (to be published in December 1996).

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GRIFFITH JOYNER, FLORENCE
Dec. 21, 1959- Former sprinter.

Before the United States Olympic Trials in July 1988, Florence Griffith Joyner was better known for her fashion flair than for her feats in track. That all changed in the space of forty-eight hours when she shattered the previous world record of 10.76 seconds in the 100-meter dash four times (although the first time was discounted because of the wind) with, respectively, a 10.60, 10.49, 10.71, and 10.61. At the same time that she earned the unofficial title of the world's fastest woman, "FloJo," as she has come to be called, brought unprecedented glamour to women's track with her striking makeup, shoulder-length wavy hair, and the one-legged leotards, bikini briefs, and see-through bodysuits that she chose to compete in. "Looking good is almost as important as running well," she once said. "It's part of feeling good about myself."

At the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, in September, Griffith Joyner confirmed her star status by winning three gold medals in the 100- and 200- meter races and the 400-meter relay and a silver medal in the 1600-meter relay. She broke the 200-meter world record of 21.71 twice, with a 21.56 in the semis and a 21.34 in the finals. Inundated by offers for product endorsements, publishing ventures, and movie and television projects that were to earn her an estimated $4 million in 1989, Florence Griffith Joyner announced in February 1989 that she was retiring from track to concentrate on an acting and writing career.

Copyright © 1996 by The H. W. Wilson Co.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1989 Current Biography Yearbook.

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JOHNSON, BEN
Dec. 30, 1961- Sprinter.

Until he was disgraced and stripped of his Olympic gold medal for illegal drug use, the fastest man on earth had been the Jamaican-born Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson. Once described by his trainer, Charlie Francis, as "the Rodney Dangerfield of track and field," Johnson struggled for years to win the respect of the media, the sports establishment, and the sprinter who was his archrival, the flamboyant American track superstar Carl Lewis. After winning four gold medals at the 1984 Summer Olympic games, Lewis had been consistently beaten by Johnson, a quiet, withdrawn young man who resented Lewis's exalted status as the crown prince of track and field. At a world championship meet in Rome in the summer of 1987, the two men were pitted against each other in an event that Sports Illustrated rightly called the "most compelling 100-meter dash in history." Johnson achieved much more than a decisive first-place finish. He shattered the world record for the 100 meters, running it in 9.83 seconds, a doubly stunning accomplishment in that Johnson ran at sea level, where sprinters are slowed somewhat by the comparatively heavy air. "Big Ben," as Johnson was called because of his muscular physique, returned to Canada a conquering hero and as the odds-on favorite to capture the gold medal in the 100-meter sprint at the 1988 Olympic Summer Games.

Indeed, Johnson won the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea in spectacular fashion. Besting second-place finisher Carl Lewis once again, he broke his own world record, running the 100 meters in 9.79 seconds. But within a matter of days, Johnson was stripped of both his medal and the world record when he tested positive for the use of steroids, a banned drug that is used by some athletes to bolster strength and endurance. Canadians, who considered Johnson a national hero, "doubled over in sickened disbelief, taking Johnson's humiliation as their own," a writer for Maclean's (October 10, 1988) observed.

Copyright © 1996 by The H. W. Wilson Co.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1988 Current Biography Yearbook.

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JOHNSON, MICHAEL
Sep. 13, 1967- Track athlete.

"Not since Tommie Smith in the late 1960s has there been a fast man with so much endurance or an endurance man with so much speed," Jere Longman wrote in the New York Times (March 5, 1995) about the track-and-field star Michael Johnson, who, as more than one observer has noted, has superseded Carl Lewis as America's premier figure in the sport. In his "speed" event, the 200-meter run, Johnson was the world champion in 1991 and 1995, and in the 400, in which stamina is key, he captured the title in 1993 and 1995--becoming, in the latter year, the first man ever to win the 200 and the 400 at a single world championship meet. (He remains undefeated in the 400.) Injury in 1988 and illness in 1992 have until now robbed him of the chance to win medals at the Olympic Games, probably the series of contests most commonly associated with track in the public mind. Nonetheless, with number-one world rankings in the 400 in 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, and 1995, and the same status in the 200 in each of those years except 1993, Johnson has proven himself to be what Jere Longman called "the world's most consistent and versatile sprinter."

Copyright © 1996 by The H. W. Wilson Co.

The complete article can be found in the July 1996 issue of Current Biography. An updated version of the article will appear on the 1983-1996 Current Biography CD-ROM ( released in January 1997) and in the 1996 Current Biography Yearbook (to be published in December 1996).

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LEWIS, CARL
July 1, 1961- Track and field athlete.

Since 1981 American track and field has been dominated by the sprinter and jumper Carl Lewis, who ranks number one in the world in the 100-meter race and the long jump and number two in the 200 meters. Lewis' best in the 100 meters is 9.97 seconds, the third fastest time ever, .04 seconds short of the international record, and in the 200 it is 19.75, the second fastest, .03 seconds behind the world mark. In his "home event," the long jump, Lewis has registered 28 feet 101-4 inches both indoors and out, for world records at low altitude and just 41-4 inches short of the record set by Bob Beamon in Mexico City, a mile-and-a-half above sea level, in 1968. At the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in the summer of 1984 Lewis won four gold medals, in the 100 meters, the 200 meters, the long jump, and the 4x400-meter relay, duplicating Jesse Owens' feat at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Copyright © 1996 by The H. W. Wilson Co.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1984 Current Biography Yearbook.

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MOSES, EDWIN
Aug. 31, 1955- Runner.

Edwin Moses, the world's premier distance hurdler, has since 1977 continuously dominated track-and-field's "man-killer" event, the intermediate 400 meters, a quarter-mile, ten-hurdle race. A two-time Olympic gold medalist, Moses has won an unprecedented unbroken series of 118 final races in his specialty, setting and resetting the world record, which he holds today at 47.02 seconds.

Although quiet and self-effacing, Moses is an esteemed leader among world-class athletes, off as well as on the track. He represents his fellow athletes on the advisory councils to the United States and international Olympic committees, and he has effectively fought against the abuse of steroids and other drugs, for the financial rights of amateurs, and for their fairer treatment by European promoters. His straight-arrow image suffered to some degree from the adverse publicity generated by his arrest for alleged solicitation for prostitution in Los Angeles in 1985, even though the case ended in his acquittal.

Copyright © 1996 by The H. W. Wilson Co.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1986 Current Biography Yearbook.

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O'BRIEN, DAN
July 18, 1966- Decathlete.

One of the most difficult challenges in all of sports is the decathlon competition, which consists of 10 events--100-meter run, long jump, shot put, high jump, 400-meter run, 110-meter hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin throw, and 1,500-meter run--all held over a two-day period. Because of the grueling nature of the long contest, and the wide-ranging physical talent required to compile the highest score, the reigning decathlon champion is often called the "world's greatest athlete." For the past five years, Dan O'Brien of Moscow, Idaho has enjoyed that unofficial title by virtue of his world record--8,891 points--as well as the three world and four United States championships that he has won. He is the first American to dominate the sport since Bruce Jenner did so in the mid-1970s, and he was the odds-on-favorite to take top honors at the 1992 Summer Olympic Games, in Barcelona, Spain. At the trial competition prior to the Games, however, O'Brien failed to qualify for the United States decathlon team, after botching his three chances to clear the bar in the pole-vaulting event. Determined to make up for that heartbreaking setback, O'Brien has said that his career "won't be complete" unless he wins an Olympic gold medal at the 1996 Summer Games, in Atlanta.

Copyright © 1996 by The H. W. Wilson Co.

The complete article can be found in the July 1996 issue of Current Biography. An updated version of the article will appear on the 1983-1996 Current Biography CD-ROM ( released in January 1997) and in the 1996 Current Biography Yearbook (to be published in December 1996).

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POWELL, MIKE
Nov. 10, 1963- Long jumper.

On August 30, 1991 the longest-standing world record in track and field was shattered by the twenty-seven-year-old American long jumper Mike Powell. With a leap of 29 feet 4 1-2 inches, Powell surpassed by two inches the mark that had been set in the high altitude of Mexico City by Bob Beamon, who at the 1968 Summer Olympics soared almost two feet farther than had any long jumper up to that time. Beamon's feat was so extraordinary that some experts believed it would never be equaled, and others believed that the only person capable of surpassing it was the track superstar Carl Lewis. Powell's record-setting leap was the culmination of a fierce rivalry between him and Lewis, who had not lost a long-jump competition since February 1981. Although Powell was ranked number one in the world (perhaps in part because Lewis entered only selected meets) and had come close to beating Lewis in the past, he had always fallen just a little short. Undaunted, Powell was motivated both by living in Lewis's large shadow and by the ridicule brought by his belief that he could break Beamon's record. After proving his detractors wrong with his record-setting jump, Powell discussed his rivalry with Lewis in an interview with Christine Brennan of the Washington Post (September 1, 1991). "Probably the biggest reason I jumped as far as I did was we are both competitors and we didn't want to lose," Powell said. "I wasn't thinking so much about breaking the record as about beating him."

Copyright © 1996 by The H. W. Wilson Co.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1993 Current Biography Yearbook.

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SALAZAR, ALBERTO
Aug. 7, 1958- Runner.

Alberto Salazar, the world's swiftest marathon man, has won all four of the 26.2-mile races he has entered, usually in the time he predicted. A top runner in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters since 1977, the intense, gutsy Salazar in 1980 won his first marathon, the New York City, in 2:09:41, a course record and the fastest marathon debut in history. The following year he won the New York race in 2:08:13, a new world record, and in 1982 he surged ahead of Mexico's Rudolfo Gomez to finish the event in 2:09:29. He won the 1982 Boston Marathon in 2:08:51, a course record. In road racing, his best marks are five miles in 22:03, a world record (1981), and 10,000 meters in 28:03.5, an American record, in 1982. His best track marks are 1,500 meters in 3:44.5 (1980), one relay mile in 4:01.9 (1981), two miles indoors in 8:24 (1981), 5,000 meters in 13:11 (1982), an American record, and 10,000 meters in 27:24 (1982), another American record.

Copyright © 1996 by The H. W. Wilson Co.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1983 Current Biography Yearbook.

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THOMPSON, DALEY
July 30, 1958- Decathlete.

The British two-time Olympic decathlon champion Daley Thompson, disdaining the lucrative non-athletic career possibilities to which many Olympic celebrities early succumb, has opted instead for long-term domination of his grueling sport. Unbeaten in the decathlon, the forty-eight-hour summa of running, jumping, and throwing, since 1978, Thompson has set new world records four times, and his current world-leading mark for the ten-event contest is 8,847 points. He is Britain's best long jumper, and his personal best in the 100 meters is 10.26 seconds, a fraction of a second behind the world record for that event. In the shot put, a relative weakness of his, he has moved up to a personal best of 15.73.

While he is single-minded in his dedication as an athlete, Thompson as a person has a reputation in the British press for being "unpredictable" as well as "cocky." Headstrong, he refuses to be interviewed by reporters who, in his view, do not understand or fully appreciate the decathlon, and he will not discuss his personal life. When he does speak to the press, he is voluble, witty, and irreverent, unsparing even of such sacred entities as members of the royal family. When he declined to carry the Union Jack in the four-and-a-half-hour-long opening ceremonies of the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, Australia, it was, he said, to save all of his strength for the decathlon. "Competition is my life--winning is my only goal," he has explained. "Everything I do is directed toward that end and I will never permit anything to jeopardize it....Since winning is the only prize anybody cares about in this world, I would like people to know what it costs." Thompson was made a member of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 1983.

Copyright © 1996 by The H. W. Wilson Co.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1986 Current Biography Yearbook.

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TORRENCE, GWEN
June 12, 1965- Sprinter.

Gwen Torrence's dominance of the international women's track scene has been virtually unmatched by any other runner in over 30 years. Whereas most runners excel in a single event, she has achieved recognition for being the most versatile sprinter of her day, having gained world-class status in all of the shorter distances, including the 60-, 100-, 200-, and 400-meter events. She won two gold medals at the 1992 Summer Olympics, in Barcelona, in the 200-meter race and the 4 x 100-meter relay. In 1994 she ranked first in the world in both the 100 meters and the 200 meters, and a year later she won the world championships in the 100 meters.

Torrence, whose sprinting abilities were discovered almost inadvertently during a high school gym class, initially was a reluctant athlete and had to be persuaded to enter various races. Known for slow starts that are followed by fierce acceleration in the finishing stretches, she has also acquired a reputation for speaking out against the use of performance-enhancing drugs in amateur athletics. Although the five-foot eight-inch, 125-pound Torrence is considered to be of average stature by the racing world, her speed and determination have transformed her from an underdog defeater of giants into the giant to be defeated. At one point she boasted the longest streak of indoor victories in recent memory, in 49 races over a four-year period. Discussing her motivational philosophy with Sarah Boxer during an interview for Sports Illustrated (May 23, 1988), she said, "I'm not into psyching. I just run."

Copyright © 1996 by The H. W. Wilson Co.

The complete article can be found in the July 1996 issue of Current Biography. An updated version of the article will appear on the 1983-1996 Current Biography CD-ROM ( released in January 1997) and in the 1996 Current Biography Yearbook (to be published in December 1996).

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