Michael Duane Johnson (born September 13, 1967) is an American retired sprinter who won four

Olympic Olympic or Olympics may refer to Sports Competitions * Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896 ** Summer Olympic Games ** Winter Olympic Games * Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece b ...

gold medals and 8 World Championships gold medals in the span of his career. He formerly held the world and Olympic records in the

200 m The 200 metres, or 200-meter dash, is a sprint running event. On an outdoor 400 metre racetrack, the race begins on the curve and ends on the home straight, so a combination of techniques is needed to successfully run the race. A slightl ...

and

400 m The 400 metres, or 400-meter dash, is a sprint event in track and field competitions. It has been featured in the athletics programme at the Summer Olympics since 1896 for men and since 1964 for women. On a standard outdoor running track, it is o ...

, as well as the world record in the indoor 400 m. He also once held the world's best time in the 300 m. Johnson is generally considered one of the greatest and most consistent sprinters in the history of track and field. Johnson is the only male athlete in history to win both the

200 meters The 200 metres, or 200-meter dash, is a sprint running event. On an outdoor 400 metre racetrack, the race begins on the curve and ends on the home straight, so a combination of techniques is needed to successfully run the race. A slightl ...

and

400 meters The 400 metres, or 400-meter dash, is a sprint event in track and field competitions. It has been featured in the athletics programme at the Summer Olympics since 1896 for men and since 1964 for women. On a standard outdoor running track, it is on ...

events at the same Olympics, a feat he accomplished at the

1996 Summer Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

in Atlanta. Johnson is also the only man to successfully defend his Olympic title in the 400 m, having done so at the

2000 Summer Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 ...

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

. Aside from his Olympic success, Johnson accumulated eight gold medals at the World Championships and is tied with Carl Lewis for the fourth most gold medals won by a runner. Johnson's distinctive stiff upright running position and very short steps defied the conventional wisdom that a high knee lift was necessary for maximum speed. As of 2012, Johnson holds 13 of the top 100 times for the 200 meters and 27 of the top 100 times for the 400 meters. Of those, he holds 14 of the top 25 times for the 400 meters. He broke 44 seconds for the 400 meters 22 times, more than twice as many times as any other athlete. Johnson held the national records for the 200,

300 __NOTOC__ Year 300 (Roman numerals, CCC) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Constantius and Valerius (or, less frequently, ...

, and 400 meters. The

4 × 400 meters relay 4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. In mathematics Four is the smallest c ...

world record was anchored by Johnson. Since 2001, he has worked at the BBC, appearing as a pundit at multiple events. He has been a part of the BBC's Olympics athletics coverage since

Athens 2004 The 2004 Summer Olympics ( el, Θερινοί Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες 2004, ), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad ( el, Αγώνες της 28ης Ολυμπιάδας, ) and also known as Athens 2004 ( el, Αθήνα 2004), ...

Professional career

1991–1995

In 1991 at the World Championships in Tokyo, Johnson earned his first world title by winning the 200 m race by the unusual margin of victory of 0.33 seconds over

Frankie Fredericks Frank "Frankie" Fredericks (born 2 October 1967) is a former track and field athlete from Namibia. Running in the 100 metres and 200 metres, he won four silver medals at the Olympic Games (two in 1992 and two in 1996), making him Namibia's only ...

. Two weeks before the

1992 Summer Olympics The 1992 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1992, ca, Jocs Olímpics d'estiu de 1992), officially known as the Games of the XXV Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XXV Olimpiada, ca, Jocs de la XXV Olimpíada) and commonly known as ...

began, Johnson and his agent both contracted food poisoning at a restaurant in Spain. Johnson lost both weight and strength. He was the favorite to win the 200 m going into the Olympics, but he could do no better than sixth in his semifinal heat, and failed to reach the 200 m final by 0.16 seconds. Nevertheless, he was able to race as a member of the 4 × 400 m relay team, which won a

gold medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have bee ...

and set a new world-record time of 2:55.74. Johnson ran his leg in a time of 44.73. He won the 1993 U.S. title in the 400 m, and followed it with world titles in both the

and

4 × 400 m relay 4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. In mathematics Four is the smallest c ...

. His 42.91 second split time in the 4 × 400 m relay remains the fastest 400 meters in history. At the 1995 World Championships in

Gothenburg Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...

, Johnson won his first

and

"double". No elite-level male track athlete had accomplished this in a major meet in the 20th century. At the end he made it a "triple" by adding another title in the

1996 Atlanta Olympics

In June 1996, Johnson was 28 when he ran the 200-m in 19.66 seconds at the U.S. Olympic Trials, breaking

Pietro Mennea Pietro Paolo Mennea (; 28 June 1952 – 21 March 2013), nicknamed ("the Arrow of the South"), was an Italian sprinter and politician. He was most successful in the 200m event, winning a gold medal at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and set a world ...

's record of 19.72 seconds that had stood for nearly 17 years. With that performance he qualified to run at the

in Atlanta and prepared to attempt to win both the 200 meters and 400 meters events, a feat never before achieved by a male athlete. (Two women have won Olympic gold medals in both races in the same year:

Valerie Brisco-Hooks Valerie Ann Brisco-Hooks (born July 6, 1960, in Greenwood, Mississippi) is an Olympian who won three gold medals as an Olympic track and field athlete at the 1984 Olympics at Los Angeles, California, making her the first Olympian to win gold me ...

in the

1984 Summer Olympics The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the secon ...

in Los Angeles, and

Marie-José Pérec Marie-José Pérec (born 9 May 1968) is a retired French track and field sprinter who specialised in the 200 and 400 metres and is a three-time Olympic gold medalist. Athletics career Pérec won the 1991 World Championships 400 metres title ...

, in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.) Johnson entered the Olympic finals donning a custom-designed pair of golden-colored Nike racing spikes made with Zytel, causing him to be nicknamed "The Man With the Golden Shoes". Sources differ on the exact weight of these shoes; the manufacturer of the spikes claims they weighed each, while other sources state each shoe weighed about . The left shoe was a US size 10.5 while the right shoe was a US size 11, to account for Johnson's longer right foot. On July 29, Johnson easily captured the 400 m Olympic title with an Olympic record time of 43.49 seconds, 0.92 seconds ahead of silver medalist Roger Black of Great Britain. At the 200 m final on August 1, Johnson ran the opening 100 meters in 10.12 seconds and finished the race in a world-record time of 19.32 seconds, breaking by more than three tenths of a second the previous record he had set in the U.S. Olympic Trials, on the same track one month earlier—the largest improvement ever on a 200 m world record. Some commentators compared the performance to Bob Beamon's record-shattering long jump at the

1968 Summer Olympics The 1968 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1968), officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XIX Olimpiada) and commonly known as Mexico 1968 ( es, México 1968), were an international multi-sport eve ...

in Mexico City. During the race, Johnson strained a muscle in his leg, which prevented him from winning his third gold medal of the Olympics in the

as Team USA went on to win the gold even without him. After the 1996 season ended, Johnson received the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in any sport in the United States, and was named

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

's '' Wide World of Sports'' Athlete of the Year. In August, HarperCollins published his biographical/motivational book, ''Slaying the Dragon: How to Turn Your Small Steps to Great Feats''.

''Rivalry with Donovan Bailey''

After the end of the

, American Sportscaster Bob Costas claimed that Johnson was faster than 100m Gold medalist Donovan Bailey Because Johnson's 200m time (19.32 Seconds) divided by 2 (9.66 Seconds) was shorter than Bailey's 100m time (9.84). This started a debate on weather Johnson or Bailey was the real "World's Fastest Man", which in turn resulted in a 150m race between the two, in which Bailey won after Johnson injured his hamstring.

1997–1999

After recovering from the injury, Johnson was able to compete for his third 400 m world title. The

IAAF World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation (from 1912 to 2001) and International Association of Athletics Federations (from 2001 to 2019, both abbreviated as the IAAF) is the international governing body for ...

invented a new policy of giving a "bye" to the defending champions essentially to allow Johnson to compete in the

IAAF World Championships The World Athletics Championships (until 2019 known as the World Championships in Athletics) are a biennial athletics competition organized by World Athletics (formerly IAAF, International Association of Athletics Federations). Alongside the Ol ...

that year, because Johnson was unable to qualify the conventional method (by competing in the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships) due to his injury from the race with Bailey. More than a month after the U.S. Championships, Johnson had recovered from his injury and won the

at the 1997 World Championships in Athens. At the

1998 Goodwill Games The 1998 Goodwill Games was the fourth edition of the international sports competition the Goodwill Games, which were created by Ted Turner in reaction to the political troubles surrounding the Olympic Games of the 1980s. The competition was held i ...

in New York City, Johnson anchored the U.S. 4 × 400 m relay team with

Jerome Young Jerome Young (born August 14, 1976) is an American former track and field sprinter who specialized in the 400-meter dash. He won gold medals with the United States 4 × 400-meter relay team at the 2001 World Championships in Athletics and 1997 ...

, Antonio Pettigrew, and

Tyree Washington Tyree Washington (born August 28, 1976) is a retired American sprinter. Born in Riverside, California, Washington attended both La Sierra High School and San Bernardino Valley College. His coach during 2003 was Antonio Pettigrew, who ran alo ...

to a win and set a world record of 2:54.20. Pettigrew has since admitted doping from 1997, while Young was caught doping in 1999. The world record was annulled by the IAAF in August 2008, and reverted to the time of 2:54:29 Johnson helped set in the 1993 World Championships. Johnson was plagued by injury in 1999, and his following season was troubled with two injury scares that limited him to just four 400 m races before the 1999 World Championships in Seville. Were it not for the

policy established two years earlier for Johnson, that allowed automatic entry to defending champions, he could not have raced in Seville since he failed to compete in the U.S. trials due to his injury. He recovered and won his fourth 400 meter world title with a new world-record time of 43.18 seconds at the relatively late age of 31 years and 11 months, which stood for nearly 17 years before being beaten at the

2016 Olympics ) , nations = 207 (including IOA and EOR teams) , athletes = 11,238 , events = 306 in 28 sports (41 disciplines) , opening = 5 August 2016 , closing = 21 August 2016 , opened_by = Vice President Michel Temer , cauldron = Vanderlei Cordeiro ...

by the South African Wayde van Niekerk. Johnson's splits for this world record were 21.22 seconds for the opening 200 meters and 21.96 seconds for the closing 200 meters, giving a differential of 0.74 seconds.

2000 Sydney Olympics

After qualifying for the

in the 400 m, Johnson sustained an injury in the 200 m final while racing in a highly anticipated matchup against the 100 m and 200 m world champion, Maurice Greene. The injury prevented a defense of his 200 m Olympic title. Johnson ended his career at the

Olympics by winning the gold medal in the 400 m, which brought his total number of Olympic gold medals to four. By winning the 400 m at the age of 33 years 12 days, he earned the distinction of being the oldest Olympic gold medalist at any track event shorter than 5000 m. Johnson was also the anchor of the United States 4x400 relay team along with

Alvin Harrison Alvin Leonardo Harrison (born January 20, 1974) is an American former track and field athlete who competed in sprinting events. He won a gold medal in the 4 x 400 metres relay at both the 1996 and 2000 Summer Olympics and a silver medal in the 40 ...

, Antonio Pettigrew, and Calvin Harrison, which originally won the gold medal, but was later stripped of the title after Pettigrew and

(who ran in the heats) were found guilty of having used performance-enhancing drugs. On July 18, 2004, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) ruled that

was ineligible to compete in Sydney and annulled all his past results, including those achieved as part of relay teams. Young had competed for the USA team in the heats and semi-final of this event. Therefore, the United States team was stripped of the gold medal and Nigeria, Jamaica, and the Bahamas were moved up one position each. On July 22, 2005, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) overturned this decision and restored the original finish order of the race based on a ruling that a team should not be disqualified because of a doping offense by an athlete who did not compete in the finals. Then in June 2008, Antonio Pettigrew "admitted in court he cheated to win" by using banned performance-enhancing substances, and agreed to return his gold medal. Johnson announced that he would return his own gold medal, won as part of the relay team with Pettigrew. Johnson stated that he felt "cheated, betrayed and let down" by what Pettigrew had done at the Games. Pettigrew committed suicide in 2010.

Achievements

Johnson has run 200 m in under 19.80 seconds six times, and he has run the distance in less than 20 seconds twenty-three times. He holds nine of the top 50 200 m performances of all time. Johnson has run twenty-two 400 m races in under 44 seconds; he holds twenty-two of the top 50 and five of the top 10 400 m performances of all time. Over the course of his career, he twice set the world record in the 200 m, three times set the world record as part of the 4 × 400 m relay team, twice set the indoor 400 m world record, set the outdoor 400 m world record once, and set the 300 m mark once.

Season's bests

After athletics

Johnson was elected to the United States Track and Field Hall of Fame in 2004, where his 200 m performance at the 1996 Olympics was named the greatest track and field moment of the last 25 years. Since retiring from competitive track, Johnson currently works as a television commentator, often for the BBC in the United Kingdom, where he has also written columns for the ''

Daily Telegraph Daily or The Daily may refer to: Journalism * Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks * ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times'' * ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...

'' and '' The Times'' newspapers. Johnson first appeared for the BBC in 2001 at the World Championships and at the

2002 Commonwealth Games The 2002 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XVII Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Manchester 2002 were held in Manchester, England, from 25 July to 4 August, 2002. The 2002 Games were to be hosted in the United Kingdom to coin ...

in Manchester. He subsequently was part of the BBC's presenting team at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, 2012 Olympic Games in London, 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. He was in the BBC commentary booth for the men's 400 meters final in Rio de Janeiro to see his world record broken by Wayde van Niekerk, saying about van Niekerk's performance, "Oh my God! From lane eight, a world record. He took it out so quick. I have never seen anything from 200 to 400 like that. That was a massacre from Wayde van Niekerk. He just put those guys away." In 2007 Johnson opened Michael Johnson Performance, at McKinney, Texas, a training facility for youth athletes aged 9 to 18 and professional athletes in all sports. The company works with Olympic teams and football clubs and has operations around the world. Michael Johnson Performance currently works with

Arsenal An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...

, assisting in the development of young players in their academy. In June 2008, Johnson voluntarily returned the 4 × 400 m relay gold medal he earned in the 2000 Olympics after Antonio Pettigrew, who ran the second leg, admitted he took performance-enhancing drugs between 1997 and 2001. Pettigrew made his admission while giving testimony in the trial of coach

Trevor Graham Trevor Graham (born 20 August 1963) is a Jamaican-born American former sprinter and athletics coach. Following the BALCO scandal, the US Olympic Committee barred him indefinitely from all its training sites. Athletics career Graham was ...

for his role in the BALCO scandal. On August 2, 2008, the International Olympic Committee stripped the gold medal from the U.S. men's 4 x 400-meter relay team. Three of the four runners in the event final, including Pettigrew and twins Alvin and Calvin Harrison, and preliminary round runner

, all have admitted or tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. Only Johnson and Angelo Taylor, who also ran in preliminary rounds, were not implicated. Johnson had already returned his medal because, as he said, he felt the medal was not won fairly. Johnson appeared as a contestant on NBC's 9th season of '' The Celebrity Apprentice'' (2010), placing 10th after exiting the show due to a personal issue on the fifth episode of the season first airing April 11, 2010. As part of the build-up to the

2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

, Johnson made a documentary, ''Survival of the Fastest'', for Channel 4 which investigated the dominance of Afro-American and

Afro-Caribbean Afro-Caribbean people or African Caribbean are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to Sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the modern African-Caribbeans descend from Africans taken as slaves to colonial Caribbean via the ...

sprinters. The program made the controversial suggestion that a side effect of the slave trade may have been to accelerate natural selection as only the very fittest could survive the brutal process, resulting in a population predisposed to superior athletic performance. Johnson currently lives in

Marin County, California Marin County is a County (United States), county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat and ...

, with his second wife Armine Shamiryan, a chef, and his son Sebastian, born in 2000 during his first marriage to entertainment reporter Kerry D'Oyen. Johnson was one of the Olympic torch bearers in the relay in the run up to the London 2012 Olympics, carrying it to

Stonehenge Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connectin ...

and

Salisbury Cathedral Salisbury Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is an Anglican cathedral in Salisbury, England. The cathedral is the mother church of the Diocese of Salisbury and is the seat of the Bishop of Salisbury. The buildi ...

in Wiltshire. In the summer of 2018, Johnson was co-captain and a coach for Godspeed, a flag football team made of former professional American football players that participated in the

American Flag Football League The American Flag Football League is a semi-professional flag football league started in 2017. The league was founded by Jeff Lewis in May 2017. Lewis spent nine months building the league, getting investors, setting the rules, and finding players ...

(AFFL). The team were crowned the champions of participating pro teams but lost in the final match to the amateur champion team. In September 2018, Johnson suffered a stroke that affected his left side. By November, he stated he was almost "back to normal", and attributed his successful recovery to the "Olympic mindset". In connection with his 54th birthday in 2021, he states that he has fully recovered.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Michael 1967 births Living people African-American male track and field athletes American male sprinters Athletes (track and field) at the 1992 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 1996 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2000 Summer Olympics Competitors stripped of Summer Olympics medals Baylor Bears men's track and field athletes James E. Sullivan Award recipients Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1996 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 2000 Summer Olympics Olympic gold medalists for the United States in track and field Participants in American reality television series Sportspeople from San Rafael, California Track and field athletes from Dallas World Athletics Championships medalists World Athletics record holders (relay) World record setters in athletics (track and field) Universiade medalists in athletics (track and field) Goodwill Games medalists in athletics BBC Sports Personality World Sport Star of the Year winners Track & Field News Athlete of the Year winners Universiade silver medalists for the United States World Athletics Championships winners The Apprentice (franchise) contestants Medalists at the 1989 Summer Universiade Competitors at the 2001 Goodwill Games Competitors at the 1990 Goodwill Games Competitors at the 1994 Goodwill Games Competitors at the 1998 Goodwill Games 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American sportspeople