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Al Joyner's own illustrious athletic career was somewhat overshadowed by
his connections with two of the greatest female athletes in history,
his sister, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and his wife, Florence
Griffith-Joyner. In addition, during the years in which Al competed,
the USA enjoyed a great depth in its triple-jumping ranks, which made it
extremely difficult to qualify to represent the USA in major
international competitions.
In 1983, Joyner qualified third in the USA
trials for the World Championships in Helsinki, where, on 8 August, he
finished 8th with a jump of 16.76m. The following year, Al finished
second behind Mike Conley at the USA final Olympic trials, and qualified
for his one and only Olympic team. In the Olympic final at Los Angeles
on 4 August, only one jump was assisted by an illegal wind reading, and
that was Al Joyner's first round jump. Joyner took advantage of this
situation to produce his longest jump to that date, a wind-assisted
17.26m (see photo above) to win the gold medal.
The 1987
national championships at San Jose also doubled as the USA selection
trials for the World Championships held later that year in Rome. At San
Jose, Joyner produced the longest legal jump of his career (17.53m) in
the qualifying round, and then almost equalled that in the final the
next day with a jump of 17.50m, but could only finish 4th, and thus did
not qualify for the USA team. If he had gone to Rome, and reproduced
either of these jumps, he would have won the bronze medal. Similar bad
luck dogged him in his final quest for USA team selection, at the 1988
Olympic trials in Indianapolis, where Joyner produced the longest jump
of his career, a wind-assisted 17.58m, but could only finish in 5th
place. (Ron Casey)
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