Lewis’ feats too often overlooked
EUGENE, Ore. — Mary Lou Retton somersaulted her way into our consciousness and a nation rejoiced. Carl Lewis won four gold medals, waved an oversized American flag and no one even stood to salute.
After the 1984 Olympics, the pixie-like Retton's smiling face turned up on TV screens, billboards and Wheaties boxes. Lewis’ countenance was virtually put into mothballs.
Lewis was track and field's greatest hero since Jesse Owens. But he might as well have been Napoleon in exile.
Part of the problem for America’s greatest Olympian might have been that the lion’s share of his dominance over an illustrious career took place on foreign soil. He set a world record in the 100 meters Aug. 25, 1991 in Tokyo and was unbeaten in the long jump for more than a decade — a string of 65 consecutive meets — and was almost always separated by an ocean or a continent from his home base in Houston.
Now, for the first time, the World Track and Field Championship will be held in the United States, starting Friday and running for 10 days at the University of Oregon’s historic Hayward Field, which has undergone a $270 million renovation for the event.
The 18th staging of the World Championship will finally give American athletes the chance to run, jump and throw on home soil, getting the emotional lift that comes with performing before a red-white-and-blue waving crowd.
In his career Lewis won more World Championship medals — eight gold, two silver — than any U.S. athlete in track and field history. He also won nine Olympic golds and one silver, almost always without benefit of a home track:
1983 Worlds, Helsinki — Lewis dominated the first Worlds, taking gold in the 100 meters and long jump in individual events and running the anchor leg on the winning 4x100 relay team.
1984 Olympics, Los Angeles — Lewis achieved his stated goal of matching Owens’ feat of four medals, winning the 100, 200, long jump and anchoring the 4x100 relay. But there was little fanfare for the achievement after Lewis disappointed the crowd at the L.A. Coliseum by not taking all of his jumps to pursue the long jump world record.
1987 Worlds, Rome — After the historic four-gold performance at the L.A. Olympics, Lewis returned to the track and lost a celebrated head-to-head showdown with Canadian Ben Johnson in the 100-meter final. But Johnson, who blew away with the field with an unheardof 9.83 world record time, was eventually stripped of his title after testing positive for steroid use a year later at the Seoul Olympics. Lewis defended his gold medal in the long jump and anchored the 4x100 relay team, which finished in 37.90, the third-fastest time ever.
1988 Olympics, Seoul —It was another disappointing finish on the track in the 100 behind Johnson. But days later while competing in the long jump, Lewis received news that Johnson had tested positive for steroids and was stripped of his medal. Lewis got his gold, but not the Olympic moment on the track. He eventually finished second to U.S. teammate Joe DeLoach in the 200 and did not get to run his anchor leg in the 4x100 relay when an early leg of the race got the team disqualified. 1991 Worlds, Tokyo — Lewis finally got the acclaim and warm adulation he craved at the third edition of the Worlds when he blitzed to a world-record time of 9.86 in defeating teammate Leroy Burrell and the fastest-ever field in the 100meter final as a jam-packed crowd of more than 70,000 at Tokyo’s National Stadium roared its approval. But the bigger headlines came days later in the long jump when Lewis’ string of 65 consecutive wins came to an end when Mike Powell’s dramatic fourthround leap of 29-4¼ barely broke Bob Beamon’s almostmythical world record, which had stood for 23 years. In defeat, Lewis put up marks of 29-2¾, 29-1 and 29-0, the greatest series of jumps in history. Lewis came back to win his eighth world championship gold medal by anchoring a team of Andre Cason, Dennis Mitchell and Burrell to a world-record time of 37.50 in the 4x100 relay.
1992 Olympics, Barcelona — Lewis won his third straight gold in the long jump and once more anchored the 4x100 relay team to a win.
1993 Worlds, Stuttgart, Germany — With the World Championship shifting to an every-two-year format, for the first time in his career, Lewis finished out of the medals in the 100. But he picked up a bronze in the 200, which would prove to be the final World or Olympic running medal of his career.
1996 Olympics, Atlanta — Injuries had kept him sidelined for several years, but Lewis returned to the spotlight on American turf in a quest to beat Powell. It took a dramatic last jump in the preliminary round to qualify him for the finals. But Lewis did deliver and went on to capture gold, joining discus thrower Al Oerter as the only Americans to win gold medals in four consecutive Olympics in the same event.
What Lewis and what is generally acknowledged as the greatest track and field team on the planet never got to experience was a World Championship on their home turf. Until now.