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Michael Johnson (athlete)
Encyclopedia
Michael Duane Johnson is a retired American
sprinter. He won four Olympic
gold medals and eight world championship
gold medals. Johnson currently holds the world and Olympic records in the 400 m
and 4 x 400 meters relay. He formerly held the world and Olympic record in the 200 m, and the world record in the Indoor 400 m. He also currently holds the world's best time at the 300 m. His 200 m time of 19.32 at the 1996 Summer Olympics
stood as the record for over 12 years. Johnson is generally considered one of the greatest long sprinters in the history of track and field.
He is the only male athlete in history to win both the 200 m and 400 m events at the same Olympics, a feat he accomplished at the 1996 Summer Olympics
in Atlanta, Georgia
. Johnson is also the only man to successfully defend his Olympic title in the 400 m. Aside from his Olympic success Johnson accumulated eight gold medals at World Championships, and is thus tied with Carl Lewis
for the most gold medals won by any runner in history.
Johnson was noted for his unique running style. His stiff upright stance and very short steps defied the conventional wisdom stating that a high knee lift was essential for maximum speed.
As of November 2010, Johnson holds 13 of the top 100 times for the 200 metres and 27 of the top 100 times for the 400 meters. Of those, he holds 14 of the top 25 times for the 400 meters.
as the youngest of five children, and attended Skyline High School and Baylor University
. At Baylor, Johnson was coached by Clyde Hart
, and won several NCAA titles in both indoor and outdoor sprints and relays. Among his early collegiate feats, Johnson broke the school record for the 200 m in his very first race with a time of 20.41, and in 4 x 400 m relays he clocked a leg at 43.5. He prepared for the 1988 Summer Olympics
in Seoul
, but developed a stress fracture
of his left fibula before the U.S. Olympic trials began. He did not qualify in the 400 m and he withdrew from the 200 m. In 1989, he placed 2nd in the 400 at the USA Indoor Championship, while at the NCAA Outdoor Championship he led off runner-up Baylor in the 4 x 400 with a time of 43.8 and won the 200 in an American record time of 20.59. Johnson hit his stride in his senior season, winning three of the four major 200 m events on the schedule, taking the 400 m at the USA Indoors Championship, and anchoring several winning relay teams.
Johnson graduated from Baylor in 1990 with a bachelor's degree in business, as the first athlete ever to hold the number one world ranking in both the 200 m and the 400 m. In 1991, he won the world 200 m title
in Tokyo
by the largest margin of victory (0.33 over Frankie Fredericks
) since Jesse Owens
won the event in the 1936 Summer Olympics
.
Two weeks before the 1992 Summer Olympics
began, Johnson and his agent both contracted food poisoning at a restaurant in Spain. Johnson lost both weight and strength. He was the favorite to win the 200 m going into the Olympics, but he could do no better than sixth in his semifinal heat, and failed to reach the 200 m 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 ran the third leg in a time of 44.73.
He won the 1993 U.S. title in the 400 m, and followed it with world titles
in both the 400 m and 4 x 400 m relay. His 42.91 second split time in the 4 x 400 m relay remains the fastest 400 meters in history. At the 1995 World Championships
in Gothenburg
, Johnson won his first 200 m and 400 m "double." No elite-level male track athlete had accomplished this in a major meet in the 20th century.
's record of 19.72 seconds, which had stood for 17 years. With that performance he qualified to run at the 1996 Summer Olympics
in Atlanta and prepared to attempt to win both the 200 meters and 400 meters events, a feat never before achieved by a male athlete. (Two women have won Olympic gold medals in both races in the same year: Valerie Brisco-Hooks
in the 1984 Summer Olympics
in Los Angeles
, and Marie-José Pérec
, in the same 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.)
Johnson entered the Olympic finals donning a custom-designed pair of golden-colored Nike
racing spikes made with Zytel
, causing him to be nicknamed "The Man With the Golden Shoes." Sources differ on the exact weight of these shoes; the manufacturer of the spikes claims they weighed 3 ounces (85 g) each, while other sources state each shoe weighed about 94 grams (3.3 oz). The left shoe was a US size 10.5 while the right shoe was a US size 11, to account for Johnson's shorter left foot.
On July 29, Johnson easily captured the 400 m Olympic title with an Olympic Record time of 43.49 seconds, almost one full second ahead of silver medalist Roger Black
of Great Britain
. At the 200 m final on August 1, Johnson ran the opening 100 meters in 10.12 seconds and finished the race in a world record time of 19.32 seconds, breaking by more than three tenths of a second the previous record he had set in the U.S. Olympic Trials, on the same track one month earlier—the largest improvement ever on a 200 m world record. Some commentators compared the performance to Bob Beamon
's record-shattering long jump
at the 1968 Summer Olympics
in Mexico City
.
After the 1996 season ended, Johnson received the James E. Sullivan Award
as the top amateur athlete in any sport in the United States, and was named ABC
's Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year. In August, HarperCollins
published his biographical/motivational book, Slaying the Dragon: How to Turn Your Small Steps to Great Feats.
world record holder, at the time Donovan Bailey
(Canada), was typically given that unofficial title, but Johnson's clocking of 19.32s (10.35 m/s) en route to breaking the 200 metre world record at the 1996 Olympics led many to consider him the fastest man in the world.
In a much hyped competition in June 1997, he raced against Donovan Bailey in a 150 metres (164 yd) race at the Rogers Centre
(then SkyDome) in Toronto. The event was unsanctioned, and its unique course consisted of 75 metres of curved track and a 75 metre straight. The race was billed as a competition for the title of "World's Fastest Man." However, Johnson failed to live up to expectations when he pulled up around the 100 metre mark as Bailey pulled away, ostensibly having injured his hamstring
. Bailey won the race and the $1.5 million prize that came with the victory, Johnson received $500,000. During the same year, Johnson won his third 400 m world title
in Athens
. The IAAF invented a new policy of giving a "bye" to the defending champions essentially to allow Johnson to compete in the IAAF World Championships
that year, because Johnson was unable to qualify the conventional method (by competing in the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships
) due to his injury from the race.
in New York
, Johnson anchored the U.S. 4 x 400 m relay team with Jerome Young
, Antonio Pettigrew
, and Tyree Washington
to a win and set a world record of 2:54.20. Pettigrew has since admitted doping from 1997, while Young was caught doping in 1999. The world record was annulled by the IAAF in August 2008, and reverted to the time of 2:54:29 Johnson helped set in the 1993 World Championships.
Johnson was plagued by injury in 1999, and his following season was troubled with two injury scares that limited him to just four 400 m races before the 1999 World Championships
in Seville
. Were it not for the IAAF
policy established two years earlier for Johnson, that allowed automatic entry to defending champions, he could not have raced in Seville since he failed to compete in the U.S. trials due to his injury. He recovered and won his fourth 400 meter world title with a new world record time of 43.18 seconds.
After qualifying for the 2000 Summer Olympics
in the 400 m at the U.S. Olympic Trials, Johnson injured himself in the 200 m final while racing in a highly anticipated matchup against the 100 m and 200 m world champion, Maurice Greene
. The injury prevented a defense of his 200 m Olympic title.
Johnson ended his career at the 2000 Summer Olympics by winning gold medal in the 400 m, which brought his total number of Olympic gold medals to four. By winning the 400 m, he earned the distinction of being the oldest gold medalist at any track event shorter than 5000 m in Olympic history. He would have won an additional medal as the anchor of the United States, 4x400 relay team along with Alvin Harrison
, Antonio Pettigrew
, and Calvin Harrison
, which originally won the gold medal. On July 18, 2004, the International Association of Athletics Federations
(IAAF) ruled that Jerome Young
was ineligible to compete in Sydney and annulled all his past results, including those achieved as part of relay teams. Young had competed for the USA team in the heats and semi-final of this event. Therefore, the United States team was stripped of the gold medal and Nigeria, Jamaica, and the Bahamas were moved up one position each. On July 22, 2005, the Court of Arbitration for Sport
(CAS) overturned this decision and restored the original finish order of the race. Then on June 2008, Antonio Pettigrew
"admitted in court he cheated to win" by using banned performance-enhancing substances, and agreed to return his gold medal. Johnson announced that he would return his own gold medal, won as part of the relay team with Pettigrew. Johnson stated that he felt "cheated, betrayed and let down" by what Pettigrew had done at the Games. Both of the Harrison twins on the relay team have subsequently received bans for doping offenses.
Michael Johnson has run 200 m under 19.80 seconds six times, and he has run the distance in less than 20 seconds twenty-three times. He holds nine of the top 50 200 m performances of all time. Johnson has run twenty-two 400 m races in under 44 seconds; he holds twenty-two of the top 50 and five of the top 10 400 m performances of all time. Over the course of his career, he twice set the world record in the 200 m, three times set the world record as part of the 4 x 400 m relay team, twice set the indoor 400 m world record, set the outdoor 400 m world record once, and set the 300 m mark once.
in 2004, where his 200 m performance at the 1996 Olympics was named the greatest track and field moment of the last 25 years.
Since retiring from competitive track, Johnson has worked as a television commentator, often for the BBC
in the United Kingdom, where he also writes a column for the Daily Telegraph.
In 2007 Johnson opened Michael Johnson Performance, a McKinney, Texas, training facility for youth athletes aged 10 to 18 and professional athletes in all sports. The company is the Official Training Partner of the Dallas Cowboys and official training center of the Dallas Stars and FC Dallas.
Johnson's sport management company, Ultimate Performance, serves as agent for track and field athletes, including 2004 Summer Olympics
400 meter gold medalist and fellow Baylor alumnus Jeremy Wariner
.
In June 2008, Johnson voluntarily returned the 4 x 400 m relay gold medal he earned in the 2000 Olympics after Antonio Pettigrew, who ran the second leg, admitted he took performance enhancing drugs between 1997 and 2001. Pettigrew made his admission while giving testimony in the trial of coach Trevor Graham
for his role in the BALCO scandal
. On August 2, 2008, the International Olympic Committee stripped the gold medal from the U.S. men's 4x400-meter relay team. Three of the four runners in the event final, including Pettigrew and twins Alvin
and Calvin Harrison
, and preliminary round runner Jerome Young
, all have admitted or tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. Only Johnson and Angelo Taylor
, who also ran in preliminary rounds, were not implicated. Johnson had already returned his medal because, as he said, he felt the medal was not won fairly.
Michael Johnson appeared as a contestant on NBC's 9th season of The Celebrity Apprentice
(2010), placing 10th after exiting the show due to a personal issue on the fifth episode of the season first airing April 11, 2010.
Johnson currently lives in Marin County, California
, with his wife Armine and his son Sebastian (born 2000).
\
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
sprinter. He won four Olympic
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
gold medals and eight world championship
IAAF World Championships in Athletics
The World Championships in Athletics is an event organized by the International Association of Athletics Federations . Originally, it was organised every four years, but this changed in 1991, and it has since been organised biennially.-History:...
gold medals. Johnson currently holds the world and Olympic records in the 400 m
World record progression 400 metres men
The first world record in the 400 m for men was recognized by the International Amateur Athletics Federation, now known as the International Association of Athletics Federations, in 1912...
and 4 x 400 meters relay. He formerly held the world and Olympic record in the 200 m, and the world record in the Indoor 400 m. He also currently holds the world's best time at the 300 m. His 200 m time of 19.32 at the 1996 Summer Olympics
1996 Summer Olympics
The 1996 Summer Olympics of Atlanta, officially known as the Games of the XXVI Olympiad and unofficially known as the Centennial Olympics, was an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States....
stood as the record for over 12 years. Johnson is generally considered one of the greatest long sprinters in the history of track and field.
He is the only male athlete in history to win both the 200 m and 400 m events at the same Olympics, a feat he accomplished at the 1996 Summer Olympics
1996 Summer Olympics
The 1996 Summer Olympics of Atlanta, officially known as the Games of the XXVI Olympiad and unofficially known as the Centennial Olympics, was an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States....
in Atlanta, Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
. Johnson is also the only man to successfully defend his Olympic title in the 400 m. Aside from his Olympic success Johnson accumulated eight gold medals at World Championships, and is thus tied with Carl Lewis
Carl Lewis
Frederick Carlton "Carl" Lewis is an American former track and field athlete, who won 10 Olympic medals including 9 gold, and 10 World Championships medals, of which 8 were gold. His career spanned from 1979 when he first achieved a world ranking to 1996 when he last won an Olympic title and...
for the most gold medals won by any runner in history.
Johnson was noted for his unique running style. His stiff upright stance and very short steps defied the conventional wisdom stating that a high knee lift was essential for maximum speed.
As of November 2010, Johnson holds 13 of the top 100 times for the 200 metres and 27 of the top 100 times for the 400 meters. Of those, he holds 14 of the top 25 times for the 400 meters.
Early life and career
Johnson was born and raised in Dallas, TexasTexas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
as the youngest of five children, and attended Skyline High School and Baylor University
Baylor University
Baylor University is a private, Christian university located in Waco, Texas. Founded in 1845, Baylor is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.-History:...
. At Baylor, Johnson was coached by Clyde Hart
Clyde Hart
Clyde Hart is the director of track and field at Baylor University. Hart retired as head coach for the Baylor track program on June 14, 2005 after 42 years with the program....
, and won several NCAA titles in both indoor and outdoor sprints and relays. Among his early collegiate feats, Johnson broke the school record for the 200 m in his very first race with a time of 20.41, and in 4 x 400 m relays he clocked a leg at 43.5. He prepared for the 1988 Summer Olympics
1988 Summer Olympics
The 1988 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIV Olympiad, were an all international multi-sport events celebrated from September 17 to October 2, 1988 in Seoul, South Korea. They were the second summer Olympic Games to be held in Asia and the first since the 1964 Summer Olympics...
in Seoul
Seoul
Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...
, but developed a stress fracture
Stress fracture
A stress fracture is one type of incomplete fracture in bones. It is caused by "unusual or repeated stress" and also heavy continuous weight on the ankle or leg...
of his left fibula before the U.S. Olympic trials began. He did not qualify in the 400 m and he withdrew from the 200 m. In 1989, he placed 2nd in the 400 at the USA Indoor Championship, while at the NCAA Outdoor Championship he led off runner-up Baylor in the 4 x 400 with a time of 43.8 and won the 200 in an American record time of 20.59. Johnson hit his stride in his senior season, winning three of the four major 200 m events on the schedule, taking the 400 m at the USA Indoors Championship, and anchoring several winning relay teams.
Johnson graduated from Baylor in 1990 with a bachelor's degree in business, as the first athlete ever to hold the number one world ranking in both the 200 m and the 400 m. In 1991, he won the world 200 m title
1991 World Championships in Athletics
The 3rd 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 and athletes from 167 countries participated in the event.The event is best-remembered for the...
in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
by the largest margin of victory (0.33 over Frankie Fredericks
Frankie Fredericks
Frank Fredericks is a former athlete from Namibia. Running in the 100 metres and 200 metres, he won four silver medals at the Olympic Games , making him Namibia's first and so far only Olympic medalist...
) since Jesse Owens
Jesse Owens
James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens was an American track and field athlete who specialized in the sprints and the long jump. He participated in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, where he achieved international fame by winning four gold medals: one each in the 100 meters, the 200 meters, the...
won the event in the 1936 Summer Olympics
1936 Summer Olympics
The 1936 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event which was held in 1936 in Berlin, Germany. Berlin won the bid to host the Games over Barcelona, Spain on April 26, 1931, at the 29th IOC Session in Barcelona...
.
Two weeks before the 1992 Summer Olympics
1992 Summer Olympics
The 1992 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event celebrated in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, in 1992. The International Olympic Committee voted in 1986 to separate the Summer and Winter Games, which had been held in the same...
began, Johnson and his agent both contracted food poisoning at a restaurant in Spain. Johnson lost both weight and strength. He was the favorite to win the 200 m going into the Olympics, but he could do no better than sixth in his semifinal heat, and failed to reach the 200 m final
Athletics at the 1992 Summer Olympics - Men's 200 metres
These are the official results of the men's 200 metres event at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. There were a total number of 80 participating athletes, with eleven qualifying heats.-Medalists:-Records:...
. 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 ran the third leg in a time of 44.73.
He won the 1993 U.S. title in the 400 m, and followed it with world titles
1993 World Championships in Athletics
The 4th 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 August 22 with the participation of 187 nations....
in both the 400 m and 4 x 400 m relay. His 42.91 second split time in the 4 x 400 m relay remains the fastest 400 meters in history. At the 1995 World Championships
1995 World Championships in Athletics
The 5th 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.This edition featured 1804 athletes from 191 nations....
in Gothenburg
Gothenburg
Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...
, Johnson won his first 200 m and 400 m "double." No elite-level male track athlete had accomplished this in a major meet in the 20th century.
Atlanta Olympics
In 1996, Johnson ran 19.66 seconds in the 200 m at the U.S. Olympic Trials, breaking Pietro MenneaPietro Mennea
Pietro Paolo Mennea is an Italian former sprinter and politician, who was the 1980 Moscow Olympic 200 meter Champion, and also held the 200 m world record for 17 years.-Biography:...
's record of 19.72 seconds, which had stood for 17 years. With that performance he qualified to run at the 1996 Summer Olympics
1996 Summer Olympics
The 1996 Summer Olympics of Atlanta, officially known as the Games of the XXVI Olympiad and unofficially known as the Centennial Olympics, was an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States....
in Atlanta and prepared to attempt to win both the 200 meters and 400 meters events, a feat never before achieved by a male athlete. (Two women have won Olympic gold medals in both races in the same year: Valerie Brisco-Hooks
Valerie Brisco-Hooks
Valerie Ann Brisco-Hooks won three gold medals as an Olympic track and field athlete at the 1984 Olympics at Los Angeles, California, making her the first Olympian to win gold medals in both the 200- and 400-meter races at a single Olympics. She also won a gold medal for the 4x400 m...
in the 1984 Summer Olympics
1984 Summer Olympics
The 1984 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Los Angeles, California, United States in 1984...
in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, and Marie-José Pérec
Marie-José Pérec
Marie-José Pérec is a French athlete, specialised in the 200 and 400 m, and a triple Olympic champion....
, in the same 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.)
Johnson entered the Olympic finals donning a custom-designed pair of golden-colored Nike
Nike, Inc.
Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...
racing spikes made with Zytel
Zytel
Zytel is a trademark owned by DuPont and used for a number of different high strength, abrasion and impact resistant thermoplastic polyamide formulations of the family more commonly known as nylon, often with varying degrees of fiberglass, from 13% to 60%, added in for additional stiffness.Some of...
, causing him to be nicknamed "The Man With the Golden Shoes." Sources differ on the exact weight of these shoes; the manufacturer of the spikes claims they weighed 3 ounces (85 g) each, while other sources state each shoe weighed about 94 grams (3.3 oz). The left shoe was a US size 10.5 while the right shoe was a US size 11, to account for Johnson's shorter left foot.
On July 29, Johnson easily captured the 400 m Olympic title with an Olympic Record time of 43.49 seconds, almost one full second ahead of silver medalist Roger Black
Roger Black
Roger Anthony Black MBE is a retired British athlete. During his athletics career, he won individual silver medals in the 400 metres sprint at both the Olympic Games and World Championships, two individual gold medals at the European Championships, and 4x400 metres relay gold medals at both the...
of Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
. At the 200 m final on August 1, Johnson ran the opening 100 meters in 10.12 seconds and finished the race in a world record time of 19.32 seconds, breaking by more than three tenths of a second the previous record he had set in the U.S. Olympic Trials, on the same track one month earlier—the largest improvement ever on a 200 m world record. Some commentators compared the performance to Bob Beamon
Bob Beamon
Robert "Bob" Beamon is an American former track and field athlete, best known for his world record in the long jump at the Mexico Olympics in 1968, which remained the world record for almost 23 years until it was broken in 1991 by Mike Powell. This is the second longest holding of this record, as...
's record-shattering long jump
Long jump
The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength, and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a take off point...
at the 1968 Summer Olympics
1968 Summer Olympics
The 1968 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Mexico City, Mexico in October 1968. The 1968 Games were the first Olympic Games hosted by a developing country, and the first Games hosted by a Spanish-speaking country...
in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
.
After the 1996 season ended, Johnson received the James E. Sullivan Award
James E. Sullivan Award
The James E. Sullivan Award, presented by the American Amateur Athletic Union , is awarded annually in April to "the outstanding amateur athlete in the United States". Often referred to as the Oscar of sports awards, it was first presented in 1930. The award is named for the AAU's founder and past...
as the top amateur athlete in any sport in the United States, and was named ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
's Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year. In August, HarperCollins
HarperCollins
HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
published his biographical/motivational book, Slaying the Dragon: How to Turn Your Small Steps to Great Feats.
The world's fastest man
In 1997 Johnson began appearing in Nike television advertisements in which he was billed as "the world's fastest man" as a result of his 200 m world record. This was despite the fact that the 100 metres100 metres
The 100 metres, or 100-metre dash, is a sprint race in track and field competitions. The shortest common outdoor running distance, it is one of the most popular and prestigious events in the sport of athletics. It has been contested at the Summer Olympics since 1896...
world record holder, at the time Donovan Bailey
Donovan Bailey
Donovan Bailey is a retired Canadian sprinter, who once held the world record for the 100 metres race following his gold medal performance in the 1996 Olympic Games. He was the first Canadian to legally break the 10-second barrier in the 100 m...
(Canada), was typically given that unofficial title, but Johnson's clocking of 19.32s (10.35 m/s) en route to breaking the 200 metre world record at the 1996 Olympics led many to consider him the fastest man in the world.
In a much hyped competition in June 1997, he raced against Donovan Bailey in a 150 metres (164 yd) race at the Rogers Centre
Rogers Centre
Rogers Centre is a multi-purpose stadium, in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated next to the CN Tower, near the shores of Lake Ontario. Opened in 1989, it is home to the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball and the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League...
(then SkyDome) in Toronto. The event was unsanctioned, and its unique course consisted of 75 metres of curved track and a 75 metre straight. The race was billed as a competition for the title of "World's Fastest Man." However, Johnson failed to live up to expectations when he pulled up around the 100 metre mark as Bailey pulled away, ostensibly having injured his hamstring
Hamstring
In human anatomy, the hamstring refers to any one of the three posterior thigh muscles, or to the tendons that make up the borders of the space behind the knee. In modern anatomical contexts, however, they usually refer to the posterior thigh muscles, or the tendons of the semitendinosus, the...
. Bailey won the race and the $1.5 million prize that came with the victory, Johnson received $500,000. During the same year, Johnson won his third 400 m world title
1997 World Championships in Athletics
The 6th World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations, were held at the Olympic Stadium, Athens, Greece between August 1 and August 10, 1997. In this event participated 1882 athletes from 198 participant nations...
in Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
. The IAAF invented a new policy of giving a "bye" to the defending champions essentially to allow Johnson to compete in the IAAF World Championships
IAAF World Championships in Athletics
The World Championships in Athletics is an event organized by the International Association of Athletics Federations . Originally, it was organised every four years, but this changed in 1991, and it has since been organised biennially.-History:...
that year, because Johnson was unable to qualify the conventional method (by competing in the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships
USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships
The USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships is an annual track and field competition organized by USA Track & Field, which serves as the American national championships for the sport...
) due to his injury from the race.
Later career
At the 1998 Goodwill Games1998 Goodwill Games
The 1998 Goodwill Games was the fourth edition of the international sports competition, created by Ted Turner in reaction to the political troubles surrounding the Olympic Games of the 1980s. The competition was held in New York, United States from July 19 to August 2, 1998.-Medal table:-References:*...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Johnson anchored the U.S. 4 x 400 m relay team with Jerome Young
Jerome Young
Jerome Young in Clarendon, Jamaica, attended high school in Hartford, Connecticut at Prince Technical, is a sprint athlete. He was caught doping in 1999, which cast suspicious shadows over his entire track & field career....
, Antonio Pettigrew
Antonio Pettigrew
Antonio Pettigrew was an American sprinter who specialized in the 400 meters. He was born in Macon, Georgia....
, and Tyree Washington
Tyree Washington
Tyree Washington is a retired American sprinter.He attended both La Sierra High School and San Bernardino Valley College....
to a win and set a world record of 2:54.20. Pettigrew has since admitted doping from 1997, while Young was caught doping in 1999. The world record was annulled by the IAAF in August 2008, and reverted to the time of 2:54:29 Johnson helped set in the 1993 World Championships.
Johnson was plagued by injury in 1999, and his following season was troubled with two injury scares that limited him to just four 400 m races before the 1999 World Championships
1999 World Championships in Athletics
The 7th World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations, were held at the Estadio Olímpico, Seville, Spain, between the August 20 and August 29....
in Seville
Seville
Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...
. Were it not for the IAAF
International Association of Athletics Federations
The International Association of Athletics Federations is the international governing body for the sport of athletics. It was founded in 1912 at its first congress in Stockholm, Sweden by representatives from 17 national athletics federations as the International Amateur Athletics Federation...
policy established two years earlier for Johnson, that allowed automatic entry to defending champions, he could not have raced in Seville since he failed to compete in the U.S. trials due to his injury. He recovered and won his fourth 400 meter world title with a new world record time of 43.18 seconds.
After qualifying for the 2000 Summer Olympics
2000 Summer Olympics
The Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
in the 400 m at the U.S. Olympic Trials, Johnson injured himself in the 200 m final while racing in a highly anticipated matchup against the 100 m and 200 m world champion, Maurice Greene
Maurice Greene (athlete)
Maurice Greene is a retired American track and field sprinter who specialized in the 100 meters and 200 meters. He is a former 100 m world record holder with a time of 9.79 seconds. During the height of his career he won four Olympic medals and was a five-time World Champion...
. The injury prevented a defense of his 200 m Olympic title.
Johnson ended his career at the 2000 Summer Olympics by winning gold medal in the 400 m, which brought his total number of Olympic gold medals to four. By winning the 400 m, he earned the distinction of being the oldest gold medalist at any track event shorter than 5000 m in Olympic history. He would have won an additional medal as the anchor of the United States, 4x400 relay team along with Alvin Harrison
Alvin Harrison
Alvin Harrison is an American athlete. He won a gold medal in the 4 x 400 metres relay at both the 1996 and 2000 Summer Olympics and a silver medal in the 400 metres at the 2000 Summer Olympics. He is the twin brother of fellow Olympic medalist Calvin Harrison...
, Antonio Pettigrew
Antonio Pettigrew
Antonio Pettigrew was an American sprinter who specialized in the 400 meters. He was born in Macon, Georgia....
, and Calvin Harrison
Calvin Harrison
Calvin Harrison is an American athlete. He won a gold medal in the Men's 4 x 400 metres relay at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. He is the twin brother of fellow Olympic medalist Alvin Harrison...
, which originally won the gold medal. On July 18, 2004, the International Association of Athletics Federations
International Association of Athletics Federations
The International Association of Athletics Federations is the international governing body for the sport of athletics. It was founded in 1912 at its first congress in Stockholm, Sweden by representatives from 17 national athletics federations as the International Amateur Athletics Federation...
(IAAF) ruled that Jerome Young
Jerome Young
Jerome Young in Clarendon, Jamaica, attended high school in Hartford, Connecticut at Prince Technical, is a sprint athlete. He was caught doping in 1999, which cast suspicious shadows over his entire track & field career....
was ineligible to compete in Sydney and annulled all his past results, including those achieved as part of relay teams. Young had competed for the USA team in the heats and semi-final of this event. Therefore, the United States team was stripped of the gold medal and Nigeria, Jamaica, and the Bahamas were moved up one position each. On July 22, 2005, the Court of Arbitration for Sport
Court of Arbitration for Sport
The Court of Arbitration for Sport is an international arbitration body set up to settle disputes related to sport. Its headquarters are in Lausanne and its courts are located in New York, Sydney and Lausanne, Switzerland...
(CAS) overturned this decision and restored the original finish order of the race. Then on June 2008, Antonio Pettigrew
Antonio Pettigrew
Antonio Pettigrew was an American sprinter who specialized in the 400 meters. He was born in Macon, Georgia....
"admitted in court he cheated to win" by using banned performance-enhancing substances, and agreed to return his gold medal. Johnson announced that he would return his own gold medal, won as part of the relay team with Pettigrew. Johnson stated that he felt "cheated, betrayed and let down" by what Pettigrew had done at the Games. Both of the Harrison twins on the relay team have subsequently received bans for doping offenses.
Michael Johnson has run 200 m under 19.80 seconds six times, and he has run the distance in less than 20 seconds twenty-three times. He holds nine of the top 50 200 m performances of all time. Johnson has run twenty-two 400 m races in under 44 seconds; he holds twenty-two of the top 50 and five of the top 10 400 m performances of all time. Over the course of his career, he twice set the world record in the 200 m, three times set the world record as part of the 4 x 400 m relay team, twice set the indoor 400 m world record, set the outdoor 400 m world record once, and set the 300 m mark once.
After athletics
Johnson was elected to the United States Track and Field Hall of FameNational Track and Field Hall of Fame
The National Track and Field Hall of Fame located within the Armory Foundation at 216 Fort Washington Avenue, between 168th and 169th Streets, in Washington Heights, in the New York City borough of Manhattan, is a museum operated by The Armory Foundation in conjunction with USA Track & Field...
in 2004, where his 200 m performance at the 1996 Olympics was named the greatest track and field moment of the last 25 years.
Since retiring from competitive track, Johnson has worked as a television commentator, often for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
in the United Kingdom, where he also writes a column for the Daily Telegraph.
In 2007 Johnson opened Michael Johnson Performance, a McKinney, Texas, training facility for youth athletes aged 10 to 18 and professional athletes in all sports. The company is the Official Training Partner of the Dallas Cowboys and official training center of the Dallas Stars and FC Dallas.
Johnson's sport management company, Ultimate Performance, serves as agent for track and field athletes, including 2004 Summer Olympics
2004 Summer Olympics
The 2004 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad, was a premier international multi-sport event held in Athens, Greece from August 13 to August 29, 2004 with the motto Welcome Home. 10,625 athletes competed, some 600 more than expected, accompanied by 5,501 team...
400 meter gold medalist and fellow Baylor alumnus Jeremy Wariner
Jeremy Wariner
Jeremy Mathew Wariner is an American track athlete specializing in the 400 meters. He has won four Olympic medals and six World Championships medals...
.
In June 2008, Johnson voluntarily returned the 4 x 400 m relay gold medal he earned in the 2000 Olympics after Antonio Pettigrew, who ran the second leg, admitted he took performance enhancing drugs between 1997 and 2001. Pettigrew made his admission while giving testimony in the trial of coach Trevor Graham
Trevor Graham
Trevor Graham is a Jamaican-born former athletics coach, based in the United States. Following the BALCO scandal, the US Olympic Committee barred him indefinitely from all its training sites as a number of the athletes he was training had tested positive for drug abuse.-Athletics career:Graham was...
for his role in the BALCO scandal
BALCO Scandal
The BALCO scandal is a scandal involving the use of banned, performance-enhancing substances by professional athletes. The Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative was a San Francisco Bay Area business accused of supplying steroids to Major League Baseball players...
. On August 2, 2008, the International Olympic Committee stripped the gold medal from the U.S. men's 4x400-meter relay team. Three of the four runners in the event final, including Pettigrew and twins Alvin
Alvin Harrison
Alvin Harrison is an American athlete. He won a gold medal in the 4 x 400 metres relay at both the 1996 and 2000 Summer Olympics and a silver medal in the 400 metres at the 2000 Summer Olympics. He is the twin brother of fellow Olympic medalist Calvin Harrison...
and Calvin Harrison
Calvin Harrison
Calvin Harrison is an American athlete. He won a gold medal in the Men's 4 x 400 metres relay at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. He is the twin brother of fellow Olympic medalist Alvin Harrison...
, and preliminary round runner Jerome Young
Jerome Young
Jerome Young in Clarendon, Jamaica, attended high school in Hartford, Connecticut at Prince Technical, is a sprint athlete. He was caught doping in 1999, which cast suspicious shadows over his entire track & field career....
, all have admitted or tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. Only Johnson and Angelo Taylor
Angelo Taylor
Angelo F. Taylor is an American athlete, winner of 400 m hurdles at the 2000 and 2008 Summer Olympics....
, who also ran in preliminary rounds, were not implicated. Johnson had already returned his medal because, as he said, he felt the medal was not won fairly.
Michael Johnson appeared as a contestant on NBC's 9th season of The Celebrity Apprentice
The Apprentice (U.S. season 9)
The Celebrity Apprentice 3 is the ninth installment of the United States version of the reality television series, The Apprentice. On April 29, 2009, NBC officially announced the renewal of Celebrity Apprentice for Spring 2010. The show premiered on Sunday, March 14, 2010...
(2010), placing 10th after exiting the show due to a personal issue on the fifth episode of the season first airing April 11, 2010.
Johnson currently lives in Marin County, California
Marin County, California
Marin County is a county located in the North San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. As of 2010, the population was 252,409. The county seat is San Rafael and the largest employer is the county government. Marin County is well...
, with his wife Armine and his son Sebastian (born 2000).
External links
- Profile by International Olympic CommitteeInternational Olympic CommitteeThe International Olympic Committee is an international corporation based in Lausanne, Switzerland, created by Pierre de Coubertin on 23 June 1894 with Demetrios Vikelas as its first president...
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