Winthrop GRAHAM

Winthrop Graham had not broken 50 seconds for the 400m hurdles prior to 1987, but he quickly lowered his best time that year to 48.49sec, which he recorded in his win at the Pan-American Games in Indianapolis on 12 August. Winthrop competed at his first World Championships later that month in Rome, where he was eliminated when he finished 6th in his semi-final. Like many top 400-metre hurdlers, Graham often doubled as a member of the national 4 x 400 relay team at major championships, and at Rome he ran the third leg for the Jamaican team which finished sixth in the final. Graham made further advancement at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, clocking a personal best of 48.37sec when he finished second in his semi-final on 24 September and further reducing that to 48.04sec when he finished 5th in the final the following day. In the 4 x 400m relay final, Winthrop won his first Olympic medal, running the third leg on the Jamaican team which finished second behind the USA.

The next time that Graham reduced his personal best was at Lausanne on 12 July 1990, where he made a marginal improvement to 48.03sec. Later that month he won the gold medal at the Goodwill Games in Seattle in 48.78sec. Graham again showed his ability to make major leaps forward in his performances in major meets at the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo. In the final, held on 27 August, he momentarily challenged the favourite Samuel Matete (Zambia) in the straight, before fading slightly to win the silver medal (see photo above, No. 645) in a new personal best of 47.74sec. Five days later he also won a bronze medal, when he anchored the Jamaican 4 x 400m relay team home to a third place finish. (Ron Casey)

Winthrop Graham had made a major breakthrough into the top ranks of the 400m hurdles at the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo, where he won the silver medal behind the season's leading runner Samuel Matete (Zambia) in a new Jamaican record of 47.74sec. Matete continued to have the upper hand over Graham in the early part of the 1992 season, although they were both in turn somewhat overshadowed by Kevin Young (USA), who had finished fourth in Tokyo the previous year.

In an incredible example of questionable seeding, Graham, Young and Matete were all drawn together in the same semi-final (2nd) at the Olympic Games in Barcelona on 5 August. In what many considered to be a preview of the fight for the medals, Graham defeated Young by just 0.01sec in 47.62sec, to again lower his national record, and move up one place to 7th on the all-time world list. Matete finished a comfortable third but was disqualified for knocking over a hurdle in an adjacent lane. In the final held the following day, Graham drew lane three, with Young, his major opposition, drawn immediately outside of him in lane four. Winthrop (see photo above) and Stephane Diagana (France) set the pace in the early stages, before Young caught them just before the halfway mark, and powered away to win in a new world record.

Graham comfortably held off the challenges of the other competitors, to win the silver medal in 47.66sec, which although slower than his semi-final time, was faster than he had ever run prior to Barcelona. Young and Graham continued their rivalry immediately after the Olympics on the Grand Prix circuit in Europe, where Graham recorded fast times of 48.22sec at Monaco, and 48.00sec at Zurich, although on each occasion he finished in second place behind Young. (Ron Casey)

During 1992, Winthrop Graham and Samuel Matete (Zambia) had waged an intriguing battle for supremacy in the 400m hurdles, although they had both been clearly overshadowed by Kevin Young (USA) who had won the Olympic gold medal in world record time ahead of Graham in second place. Young continued this superiority over his rivals into the following season, eventually building a winning streak of 25, before Matete narrowly defeated him at London on 23 July. Young's favouritism for the World Championships at Stuttgart took another jolt in his final two races before the biggest meet of the year. In the first, at Zurich on 4 August, Graham won from Matete and Young in a new Jamaican record and career best time of 47.60sec.

Three days later at Monaco, Matete defeated Young again, with Graham third. This clearly made the three athletes the favourites to share the medals at Stuttgart, where Graham easily won his first round heat (see photo above © G Herringshaw) on 16 August. The expectation for an exciting final increased when Graham, Matete and Young were the respective winners of the three semi-finals the following day. In the final, Young produced the fastest time of the year to win the gold medal, while Graham only narrowly lost the battle for silver with Matete, clocking his second fastest time ever of 47.62sec. Although Graham was still competitive in the following years, he never again regained the level he had enjoyed in 1992 and 1993.

He was the third fastest performer in 1994 with his time of 48.05sec recorded at Linz on 4 July, but in the following year's World Championships in Gothenburg, he was disqualified due to a trailing leg violation in his semi-final. His last Olympic appearance at Atlanta in 1996 was not a happy one, as he was eliminated during the first round heats. (Ron Casey)