Iconic sprinter’s times remain ones to chase

TOKYO >> She had the long and colorful nails. She wore the flashy outfits, including a neon one-legged spandex bodysuit.

Above all, she had the iconic nickname “Flo-Jo,” which just sounded fast.

For 33 years, sprinters have been chasing the records cemented next to the name “Florence Griffith Joyner.” The current wave of speedsters — many of whom weren’t even born when Flo-Jo commanded the stage — keep creeping closer to the late sprinter’s hallowed world-record marks i n the 100 (10.49 seconds) and the 200 (21.34).

So much so that Al

Joy ner, her husband, wouldn’t be surprised if the records soon fall — maybe over the next two weeks at the Tokyo Games. And if not here, then perhaps by the next time everyone gathers for the Olympics, in Paris in 2024.

All of which, Joyner firmly believes, wouldn’t bother Flo-Jo in the least.

“I remember she once told me, ‘I never want anybody to be like me. I want them to make bigger footsteps than me,’” Joyner said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “That was always her dream.”

Of course, there have been those who question the legitimacy of the records.

The times were mindboggling when she set them, and the fact nobody has come within .14 seconds of either mark in three decades-plus often leads to not-so-subtle commentary on social media and elsewhere. The 100 record came on a breezy day in Indianapolis, but officials deemed it a legal wind. While Flo-Jo’s record has stood, the men’s record has been lowered about a dozen times since 1988 to where it stands today — 9.58 by Usain Bolt in 2009.

And, of course, there is the specter of doping during that era in track. With fast times run in the U.S. and Jamaica putting FloJo’s old marks back in the limelight this year, the predictable cycle of allegations resurfaced. Family friend and actor Holly Robinson

Peete tried to shut it down.

“Her funeral was one of the saddest most crushing days I’ve ever experienced,” Peete posted on her Twitter account. “Sooo — what you are NOT going to do is make up (poop emoji) about her disrespecting her family and her legacy.”

Those assertions and accusations always rankle Al Joyner, who tries to stay above the fray with that part of the legacy. The only individual women’s running records that have been on the books longer are the 400 meters (Marita Koch of East Germany, 1985) and the 800 (Jarmila Kratochvilova of Czechoslovakia, 1983) — both during a time when Eastern Bloc countries were committed to widespread doping.