Florence GRIFFITH-JOYNER

Florence Griffith-Joyner - U.S.A. - Biography of her athletics career 1987 and 1988.

Photo/Foto: George Herringshaw

Date: 03 September 1987

Click on image to enlarge

    • DATE OF BIRTH
      Monday, 21 December 1959
    • PLACE OF BIRTH
      Los Angeles, U.S.A. Died 21 September 1998. Aged 38.
  • INTERNATIONAL
  • U.S.A.
    • Event(s)
      100m, 200m
    • Championship Performances
      Olympics: 1988 Gold 100m, Gold 200m, Gold 4 x 100m, silver 4 x 400m, 1984 silver 200m.
      Worlds: 1987 silver 200m, Gold 4 x 100m.
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Florence GRIFFITH-JOYNER - U.S.A. - Biography of her athletics career 1987 and 1988.

                                  200metres  silver medal at 1987 World Championships.

 

 After having gone into virtual semi-retirement at the end of a lacklustre 1986 season, Florence Griffith, at the age of 28, returned better than ever in 1987, setting new standards, and laying the foundation for her rise to superstardom in 1988. At the US national championships held at San Jose in June, Griffith won her heat of the 200m in 22.35sec, her fastest time for three years. She improved on this time in winning her semi-final the next day (26 June) in 22.20sec. The final later that day produced some phenomenal times, aided by wind assistance over the legal limit and the usage of hand timing due to equipment malfunction. Pam Marshall won the race in 21.6sec with Florence second in 21.7sec. This second placing qualified Griffith for her second World Championships which were held at Rome in August.

 

Griffith caused a minor sensation in Rome not only for her fast times, but also with the full length skin-tight body suit she wore in the preliminary rounds of the 200m. With her long fingernails trimmed, brightly coloured eye-catching attire (see photo above) would from then on become the Griffith trademark. At Rome she won her semi-final in 22.38 sec, and then in the final dipped under 22 seconds (21.96sec) for the first time when she finished second to Silke Gladisch (East Germany) in the final. In addition, Griffith ran the third leg on the US 4 x 100m relay team which won the gold medal. In the lead-up to Rome, she recorded her best time ever (10.96sec) over 100m at Cologne. On October 10 she married Al Joyner, the 1984 Olympic triple jump gold medallist, and thenceforth adopted the name Florence Griffith-Joyner, which would very soon become a household name. (Ron Casey)

 

 

Florence Griffith-Joyner in full flow at the 1988 Olympic Games.  Photo G. Herringshaw.

 

                                Flo-Jo mashes world records at US Olympic trials .

 


In the early part of the 1988 season, Florence Griffith-Joyner continued the form improvement she had shown during 1987. In June she ran 10.89sec for the 100m at San Diego and 22.15sec over 200m at Santa Monica. With this form, Griffith-Joyner came to the US Olympic Trials in July at Indianapolis with an excellent chance to make the US team in both the 100m and 200m. However, nobody was prepared for the performances that she would achieve at the trials. In the space of eight days she was transformed from a world-class athlete into a household name. One headline writer abbreviated her lengthy name to 'Flojo', and thenceforth, this became the name by which she would be popularly known. On July 16 she won her 100m heat in 10.60sec, the fastest time ever recorded by a woman, but unfortunately aided by an illegal wind.

 

Later that day, in winning her quarter-final she recorded an unbelievable time of 10.49sec, well below Evelyn Ashford's 10.76sec World Record. The next day she won her semi-final in 10.70sec and the final in 10.61sec. In four races, she had run faster than the existing World Record on each occasion, and in three of them the wind assistance was legal. Griffith-Joyner produced a similar set of world-class times in winning the 200m, although Marita Koch's and Heike Drechsler's joint World Record of 21.71sec remained intact. Griffith-Joyner's times over the four rounds were 21.96sec, 21.77sec, 21.90sec (wind assisted) and 21.85sec in the final. All four times were better or equal to her previous best of 21.96sec. By the time Griffith-Joyner arrived in Seoul for the Olympic Games the whole world was waiting to see if she could reproduce her Olympic Trials performances on the greatest stage of all. (RC)

 

 

Photograph by George Herringshaw.  ©        

                       

                             Three gold medlas and a silver at 1988 Olympic Games.

  

 At the Olympic Games the legend of Florence Griffith-Joyner continued to grow with another series of unbelievable performances. She easily won both the 100m and 200m gold medals leaving a number of world-class athletes floundering in her wake. Her winning times over the four rounds of the 100m were 10.88sec, 10.62sec (both new Olympic records), 10.70sec (wind assisted) and 10.54sec (wind assisted). She then turned her attention to the 200m, where she won the first two rounds in 22.51sec and 21.76sec (the latter time beating the US national record she had set at the US Olympic Trials). In the semi-final, she smashed Koch's and Drechsler's joint World Record of 21.71sec with a time of 21.56sec. Not content with that, in the final the same day, she annihilated a top-class international field as well as the World Record by setting a new standard of 21.34sec. (the photo above shows her celebrating with husband Al after the final). Two days later, Flojo ran the third leg on the US 4 x 100m relay team when it won the gold medal beating their old foes East Germany. As the other three girls hugged each other in celebration, Flojo slipped quietly away to prepare for the 4 x 400m relay final less than 30 minutes away. Unfortunately, the dream of four gold medals was not to be. Despite a superb split of 48.1sec from Griffith-Joyner, the US team had to settle for second in the 4 x 400m relay behind the Soviet Union. Both teams broke the existing World Record set by East Germany in 1984. She retired from the track after that race to pursue a career in acting and writing. On 21 September 1998 the world was shocked to hear that Florence Griffith-Joyner had died in her sleep from a heart seizure. She was only 38 years old. (Ron Casey)

....

 

Footnote.

Aside from whether her 1988 Olympic trial world record was wind-aided, Griffith Joyner was dogged by rumours of drug use.

Griffith Joyner retired from competitive track and field after her Olympic triumph in 1988.She was repeatedly tested during competition and she did not fail any of these drug tests. Mandatory random out-of-competition drug testing came into effect during the 1989 season.

Her unexpected death was investigated by the sheriff-coroner's office, which announced on October 22 that the cause of death was suffocation during a severe epileptic seizure. She was also found to have had a cavernous hemangioma, a congenital brain abnormality that made Joyner subject to seizures. According to a family attorney, she had suffered a tonic–clonic seizure in 1990, and had also been treated for seizures in 1993 and 1994.

Griffith Joyner's supporters claimed that the autopsy cleared her of allegations that she used performance-enhancing drugs. The Orange County coroner's office noted that the autopsy records showed that she did not die from drugs or banned substances. The coroner had requested that Griffith Joyner's body specifically be tested for steroids, but was informed that there was not enough urine in her bladder and that the test could not accurately be performed on other biological samples.

The city of Mission Viejo dedicated a park at the entrance to her neighborhood in her honor.