MICHAEL JOHNSON (ATHLETE)

'Ike Duane Johnson' (born September 13, 1967) is a retired American sprinter who holds world records in the 200 meters, 400 meters and 4 x 400 m relay. He also has run the fastest 300 meters of all time, an event not recognized by the IAAF. He won five Olympic gold medals and was crowned world champion nine times. He is the only sprint athlete in history to win both the 200 meters and 400 meters events at the same Olympics, accomplishing the feat at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, and the only man to successfully defend his title in the 400 meters at a Summer Olympics competition.
Johnson was noted for his unique running style. His upright stance and very short steps defied the perceived wisdom that a high knee lift was essential for maximum speed.

Contents

Biography

Personal bests

Achievements

References

External links

Biography

Johnson was born in Dallas, Texas and attended Skyline High School.
A 1990 graduate of Baylor University, where he was coached by Clyde Hart, Johnson won a number of medals at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships during his collegiate career. Johnson's breakthrough onto the world stage came in 1991 when he won the World Championship 200 meters title in Tokyo.
A month before the 1992 Summer Olympics Johnson contracted food poisoning, which resulted in weight loss and a loss of form. He consequently failed to qualify for the 200 meters final. Nevertheless, he was able to race as a member of the 4 x 400 m relay team, which won a gold medal and set a new world record time of 2:55.74.
Johnson won the 400 meters at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart. He also won another gold medal as a member of the 4 x 400 m relay team, setting a new world record of 2:54.29. As the anchor leg of this team, he ran what is believed to be the fastest 400 meters relay leg in history, with a time of 42.94 seconds. In the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg Johnson completed his first "double" in a major tournament, winning both the 200 meters and 400 meters.
Johnson broke the 200 meters world record which had stood for nearly 17 years when he ran 19.66 seconds at the USA National Championships. With that performance he qualified to run at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and prepared to attempt to win both the 200 meters and 400 meters events. This feat had never before been achieved by an athlete. Some considered it to be impossible because of the overlapping schedule for the two events, since a 200 meters / 400 meters attempt was so unusual. (Two women have won Olympic gold medals in both races in the same year: Valerie Brisco-Hooks in 1984 and Marie-José Perec, in the same 1996 Olympics.)
Johnson entered the Olympic finals donning a custom-designed pair of gold-colored Nike racing spikes made with Zytel, causing him to be nicknamed "The Man With the Golden Shoes". The soles of these shoes weighed only 30 grams.^[1] On July 29, Johnson easily captured the 400 meters Olympic title with a time of 43.49 seconds, beating Roger Black of Great Britain by almost a second. At the 200 meters final on August 1, Johnson ran the opening 100 meters in 10.12 seconds, achieving a peak speed of over 40 km/h (25 mph), and finished the race in a world record time of 19.32 seconds, shattering the previous record he had set just months before. This was the largest improvement ever on a 200 meters world record. Some commentators compared the performance to Bob Beamon's 1968 long jump in Mexico because of the magnitude of the improvement over the previous record. The fastest 200 meters run since then is 19.62 seconds held by Tyson Gay on June 24, 2007, 0.30 seconds slower than Johnson's record. Johnson received the James E. Sullivan Award in the same year as the top track and field athlete in the United States, as well as being named as ABC's Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year.
In August 1996, HarperCollins published his biographical/motivational book, ''Slaying the Dragon: How to Turn Your Small Steps to Great Feats''.
In 1997 Johnson began performing television promotions in which he billed himself as "the world's fastest man" as a result of his 200 meters world record, despite the fact that the 100 metres world record holder, at the time Canadian Donovan Bailey, was typically given that unofficial title. In a publicity stunt during June of 1997, he raced against Bailey in a 150 meters race at the Rogers Centre (then SkyDome) in Toronto. The 150 meters consisted of 75 meters of curving track and 75 meters of straight away, a configuration that was unique to this unsanctioned event. The race was billed as a competition for the title of "World's Fastest Man", but failed to live up to expectations when Johnson pulled out with an injured quadricep, while Bailey led him at the half-way mark. Bailey easily won the race (and the $1.5 million prize). Johnson recovered from the injury, and that same year he won his third 400 meters World Champion title. The debate over who was fastest was thus never resolved.
In 1999 he was again plagued by injury, and his following season was troubled with two injury scares that limited him to just four 400 meters races before the World Championships in Seville. Were it not for the IAAF's policy of allowing defending champions automatic entry, he would not have raced in Seville, since he failed to compete in the USA trials due to his injury. He recovered and won his fourth 400 meters World Champion title with a new world record time of 43.18 seconds. He later ran the last leg of the 4 x 400 m relay, adding a ninth World Championship gold medal to his collection.
Johnson ended his career at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney by winning the 400 meters title and 4 x 400 m relay race, bringing his total number of Olympic gold medals to five.
Johnson has run 22 400-meters races under 44 seconds. In the 200 meters, he has run six times under 19.80 seconds and 23 sub-20 second performances. He also holds an unofficial world record at the 300 meters event with a time of 30.85 seconds.
Johnson holds 24 of the top 50 and 7 of the top 10 400 meters performances of all time.^[2] He also holds 11 of the top 50 200 meters performances of all time.^[3]
He was also nicknamed the "Duck" for his unique running style, characterized by his head bobbing backwards and forward, straightness of his back and not much arm drive. When asked by a reporter, "If you had a usual running technique like other runners do you think you would go faster?" Johnson responded by saying "If I ran like all the other runners, I would be back there with them."
Since retiring from competitive sport he has worked as a television athletics pundit, often for the BBC in the United Kingdom, where he also writes a column for the ''Daily Telegraph'' newspaper. He also has served as the Agent for Jeremy Wariner, who won the Gold Medal in the 400 meters at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Wariner, like Johnson, ran collegiately at Baylor University for coach Clyde Hart.
He has been featured in a Coors Light ad that is currently running, dubbing him as the "world's fastest man".

Personal bests

Date	Event	Venue	Time
June 16, 1994	100 m	Knoxville, Tennessee	10.09
August 1, 1996	200 m	Atlanta, Georgia	19.32 ''WR''
March 24, 2000	300 m	Pretoria, South Africa	30.85 ''WR''
August 26, 1999	400 m	Seville, Spain	43.18 ''WR''

Achievements

Year	Meeting	Venue	Result	Event
1990	Goodwill Games	Seattle, Washington	1st	200 m
1991	IAAF / Mobil Grand Prix Final	Barcelona, Spain	1st	200 m
1991	IAAF World Championships	Tokyo, Japan	1st	200 m
1992	1992 Summer Olympics	Barcelona, Spain	1st	4x400 m Relay
1993	IAAF / Mobil Grand Prix Final	London, Great Britain	3rd	200 m
1993	IAAF World Championships	Stuttgart, Germany	1st	4x400 m Relay
1993	IAAF World Championships	Stuttgart, Germany	1st	400 m
1994	Goodwill Games	St. Petersburg, Russia	1st	200 m
1995	IAAF / Mobil Grand Prix Final	Monaco	1st	200 m
1995	IAAF World Championships	Gothenburg, Sweden	1st	4x400 m Relay
1995	IAAF World Championships	Gothenburg, Sweden	1st	200 m
1995	IAAF World Championships	Gothenburg, Sweden	1st	400 m
1996	1996 Summer Olympics	Atlanta, Georgia	1st	200 m
1996	1996 Summer Olympics	Atlanta, Georgia	1st	400 m
1997	IAAF World Championships	Athens, Greece	1st	400 m
1998	Goodwill Games	New York City, New York	1st	400 m
1999	IAAF World Championships	Sevilla, Spain	1st	4x400 m Relay
1999	IAAF World Championships	Sevilla, Spain	1st	400 m
2000	U.S. Olympic Trials	Sacramento, California	1st	400 m
2000	2000 Summer Olympics	Sydney, Australia	1st	4x400 m Relay
2000	2000 Summer Olympics	Sydney, Australia	1st	400 m

References

1. USOC.org
2. All-time men's best 400 m
3. All-time men's best 200 m

External links

★ IOC profile

★ Video of Johnson’s running style as he breaks the world record at Atlanta in 1996

★ Michael Johnson's U.S. Olympic Team bio

★ Michael Johnson's Baylor bio