Florence Griffith

For those who don’t remember who Florence Griffth-Joyner was, she is still the World and Olympic Record holder for both 100 and 200 meter events. Better known as Flo-Jo, she either had one of two things going for her in her career, either she had a God given talent and was destined to be the fastest woman to ever live or she was cheating. In this day and age, every time you look around an individual record seems to always be broken, except for hers. We have the Men’s 100 meter basically broken every three or four months and her record still stands after 20 years. From what I see in sports today as time goes on athletes get bigger and faster, with that being said you expect these records to be broken eventually, but not in the Women’s 100 and 200 meter races.

In 1983, Joyner finished fourth in the 200 meters at the World Championships and then won the silver medal in 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. In 1985 she won the final of the 100 meters at the Grand Prix with a time of 11.00. After 1985 she slowed down on running and married Al Joyner in 1987. In the 1987 World Championships she again came in second place in the 200 meters. Then in the Olympic Trials this 200 meter runner shocked the world by running a world record 10.49 in the 100 meters. Before this race she never ran faster than a 10.61 without wind assistance.

In the 1988 Seoul Olympics she ran a wind aided 10.54 100 meter time beating the nearest runner by 0.3 seconds…WOW!!! In the 200 meter quarterfinal race she broke the world record and then broke her own record in the final with a time of 21.34, beating the nearest runner by 0.4 seconds…WOW AGAIN!!! She also competed in the 4×100 meter relay winning a Gold medal and in the 4×400 relay winning a Silver medal. I can understand the 4×100 but the crazy one was the 4×400 meter relay, Joyner never even ran the 400 before that event and still helped the U.S.A. win the silver. INCREDIBLE!!!

Why is it that not one woman can come or have come close to these records??? Shelly-Ann Fraser won the Gold this year running a time of 10.78 which is not even close to Joyner’s world record time of 10.49 ran in the Olympic trials in 1988. So far in the Olympics this year the fastest 200 meter time run is by American Muna Lee in 22.71 which again is not even touching Joyner’s 21.34. That time is more than one full second faster than Lee’s time. Unbelieveable isn’t it???

Flo-Jo’s coach suggested that the times that she ran in the 100 and 200 meter races were both wind-aided. Before the Olympic trials in 1988, she never ran faster than a 10.61 without wind assistance. If this was the case then the rest of the runners would have run .12 or more seconds faster than their personal bests as well. The wind just doesn’t blow one person faster than all the others, or does it???

In 1988 when she was running those races, I was one of the biggest Flo-Jo supporters there was and then again I was only in elementary school at the time. But as I got older, more educated and started to develop some sense, I researched this and found that these statistics were recorded and still stands to this day. Also keep in mind that there were no steroid or performance enhancing tests in the Olympics at that time, so we can’t prove anything, but let’s look at the statistics and make some sense of this. After one year she goes from an average 200 meter runner to a world record holder in the 100 and 200 meter events. HMMMMM!!! But I’m not here to question the talents that the Lord has bestowed upon us whether it be past, present or future, this one seems to be a little fishy to me.