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The 100 metres at every Olympic Games is seen as "the event" because it
crowns one man as the world's current fastest human being. The 1988 race
was extraordinary: Carl Lewis was defending the title, had won the U.S.
trials with two sub-10sec. runs on the same day, 9.78sec.w &
9.96sec. (something no one had ever achieved before) and he was set to
face the new world champion and world record holder, Ben Johnson of
Canada. The race was sensational! Johnson won in 9.79sec. from Lewis
(9.92sec.) reversing their $1million head-to-head challenge race in
August (Lewis 9.93).
Carl was bitterly disappointed (as the above photo shows !)
for he regarded Johnson with suspicion. His concerns were justified -
three days later Johnson was disqualified following a mandatory drugs
test which showed he had cheated and Lewis was declared the winner. He thus became the first man in Olympic history to retain the 100m. title, likewise the long jump.
The 200m. proved to be another disappointment as he also lost that
race, but this time to his training partner Joe DeLoach who won in an
Olympic record time of 19.75sec. with Lewis second in 19.79sec.
However,
he was unchallenged in the long jump final winning with a leap of
8.72m. (28ft. 71/2in.) from fellow American Mike Powell (8.49m.) (Carl
had no-jumped over 8.90m. in the Olympic trials), but the U.S.A. were
disqualified in the 4x100m. relay depriving him of a possible 'hat
trick' of golds. A belated bonus for Lewis was the deletion of Ben
Johnson's 1987 world 100m. record of 9.83sec. thus meaning in subsequent
record books, Lewis was the record holder with his 'winning' 9.92
secs. in Seoul. (George Herringshaw)
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