In exactly 19.32 seconds, Michael Johnson turned the inevitable into the incredible.
Not content merely to become the first man to win the 400 and 200 meters in the same Olympics, which had been expected, the 28-year-old from Dallas ran a world record in the 200 so stunning it left everyone who saw it even more breathless than Johnson.
When he crossed the finish line and his winning time flashed Thursday night at Olympic Stadium, there was a split-second of silence as the crowd of 82,884 gasped from incomprehension.
As brilliant as Johnson has been for the last six years, when he became the first to do several other historic things in the two events, there was no way 19.32 could compute by any sort of previous standards.
Statistics, dry as they are, seem the best way to put Johnson into perspective, for he is the most methodical of athletes, a man who will lay out his postrace clothes on a hotel bed 10 hours before the race is run.
Breaking the mark of 19.66 he set June 23 at the U.S. Olympic trials, Johnson lowered the record by twice as much as it had dropped in the previous 28 years.
The record he broke in June, 19.72 set by Pietro Mennea of Italy in 1979 with the benefit of thin air in 7,400-foot-high Mexico City, was at that time the oldest in the sport.
“I got more than I expected,” Johnson said. “I would have lost all my money if I had bet on a time. I always thought 19.5 or 19.4 was possible. I can’t describe what it feels like to run 19.3.”
As Johnson took a victory lap with a wrap on a right leg that cramped 5 meters before the finish, the stadium sound system started playing his song, a rock tune called “Unbelievable.” Funny thing was, a refrain from a much older song also rang true for this remarkable night of track.
It was the lyric about the battle of the sexes, “I can do anything you can do better.”
A few minutes before Johnson completed his double, Marie-Jose Perec of France had done the same thing. The difference was Valerie Brisco-Hooks of the U.S. had done it before, at the 1984 Olympics, and Johnson did it better with the world record.
Although eight races in seven days took their toll on Perec, 28, whose winning time of 22.12 was slower than both her personal best and not close to Florence Griffith Joyner’s record 21.34, they could not slow Johnson’s run to glory.
“I’ve said before the fastest man alive is the winner of the 100,” said Ato Boldon of Trinidad & Tobago, who finished third in both the 100 and 200. “The fastest man alive is sitting to my left.”
That, of course, was Johnson, who beat Frank Fredericks of Namibia by the largest margin of victory in an Olympic 200 since Jesse Owens’ four-tenths of a second triumph in 1936. What makes that even more significant is Fredericks ran 19.68, a time which only six weeks ago would have made headlines worldwide.
“The most important thing was making history,” Johnson said.
That has been his magnificent obsession since the 1992 Olympics, when Johnson was favored to win the 200 but food poisoning kept him even from making the final.
Although some might have considered it hubris to think about winning two individual gold medals before he had even one, the challenge motivated this Baylor graduate to reach singular status with a double.
“A lot of people paid a lot of money to watch me run this race,” Johnson said, “but if you saw me in practice you would really get your money’s worth.”
Few have seen those practices other than Baylor coach Clyde Hart, who has guided Johnson’s career the last 10 years. When Hart recruited Johnson out of Skyline High School in Dallas, it was for his character as much as his ability.
“At that time, I didn’t see him as a conference champion or a national champion,” Hart said.
In 1990 Johnson became the only person to earn No. 1 world rankings in both the 200, which is a pure sprint, and the 400, which blends speed and stamina. In 1995, he became the first man since 1899 to win both races at the U.S. championships and the first to win both at a global championship–the world meet in Sweden.
After that, Johnson began serious lobbying with the International Amateur Athletic Federation to have the Olympic schedule changed so there would be no overlap in the 400 and 200. When that request was granted in March, Johnson was left to put up or shut up.
“There has never been this kind of pressure on my entire life,” Johnson said. “I perform better under pressure, but I was afraid out there today that I wouldn’t get the medal and make history. For me, being afraid is OK. I like to be nervous.”
His victory in the 400 was less challenging. Johnson has won 55 straight finals at that distance, and he won Monday night’s by the largest Olympic margin since 1896.
“This sums up what my career has been, bringing these two events together and doing things in them no one has ever done before,” Johnson said.
In the 200, Johnson stumbled coming out of the blocks but still got a jump on Fredericks. He flew through the first 100 meters in 10.12 seconds and the second in an unimaginable 9.2.
Fredericks has finished second in the 100 and 200 at the last two Olympic Games.
“It’s an incredible thrill to run that fast,” Johnson said. “The only thing I can compare it to is when my dad bought me a go-cart when I was a kid and I used to make it faster if I went down a hill.”
The kid is now the man who went in a different direction Thursday. The ascent of Olympus has never been made so quickly.
