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Following her close second-place finish in the 400m hurdles at the 1991
World Championships, where she recorded the third fastest time in
history, Sally Gunnell became highly favoured as a gold medal chance at
the following year's Olympic Games in Barcelona. However, even though
Gunnell made a good start to the 1992 season, Sandra Farmer-Patrick
(USA) made an even better one, recording the fastest two times for the
season prior to Barcelona. Significantly, Farmer-Patrick had defeated
Gunnell the only two times they had met, at Stockholm on 2 July, and
again at Lille four days later. In addition, Sally suffered a thigh
injury only three weeks before the Olympics, and by the time she arrived
in Barcelona, Farmer-Patrick was the firm favourite for the gold medal.
However, Gunnell showed from the start that she wasn't to be taken
lightly, setting the fastest time of 54.98sec in the heats on 2 August.
The following day, Sally won her semi-final (see photo above) by
a huge margin, setting her fastest time for the year to date of
53.78sec, and more importantly, beating the time of 53.90sec that
Farmer-Patrick recorded in winning the second semi-final. In the final
on 5 August, Farmer-Patrick hit the front at the third hurdle and
maintained her lead into the home straight, with Gunnell only narrowly
behind. Gunnell had a much smoother hurdling style than her American
rival, and this was the telling factor in the straight, as Sally
attacked the final three barriers, hitting the lead at the ninth hurdle
and running away to win the gold medal in 53.23sec, the sixth fastest
time in history, and only marginally slower than her personal best of
53.16sec.
Gunnell also picked up a bronze medal at Barcelona, when she
ran the anchor leg on the third-placed Great Britain team in the 4 x
400m relay. (Ron Casey)
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