Edwin MOSES

Edwin Moses missed the entire 1985 season due to injury and in his absence his rivals, Harald Schmid (West Germany), Danny Harris (USA) and Andre Phillips (USA) were the dominant forces in the 400m Hurdles. But Moses returned to competition in 1986 as good as ever, setting the season's fastest time of 47.38sec at Lausanne on 2 September. More significantly, he continued to extend the winning streak which he had maintained since losing to Schmid at Berlin in August 1977. At the Budapest Grand Prix meet on 11 August 1986, Moses won his 100th successive 400m Hurdles final (115 successive races) in 47.76sec.

He extended this streak the next year to 107 successive finals (122 successive races), until he was finally beaten by Danny Harris in Madrid on 4 June. With Harris having proven that the champion was no longer invincible, and Schmid enjoying his best season for years, they both arrived at the 1987 World Championships in Rome with boosted confidence that Moses could finally be defeated at a major championships. In the final at Rome on September 1, Moses drew lane 3, with old rival Schmid beside him in lane 4 and young challenger Harris in lane 5. Moses got his usual fast start and was 2 metres clear at the top of the straight, but Harris and Schmid were both finishing strongly. Moses tired badly in the last 30 metres but still tried valiantly to preserve his quickly diminishing lead. All three men desperately dipped at the tape (see photo above) crossing the line virtually together.

The photo finish results showed that Moses had just hung on to defend his world title in 47.46sec with Harris (2nd) and Schmid (3rd) both finishing only 0.02sec behind. (Ron Casey)