Considered a sure thing at the Olympics, he was eliminated in the semifinals as 11 runners beat his pedestrian 20.78. But I've always seen track as a job that I love. It's not who I am. And to his competitors. But not to the public.
Olympic medals are worth more than their weight in gold.
Johnson did get an Olympic gold for his participation on the winning 4x400 relay team, but that's not the same as an individual gold. He had to wait four more years for that. He is an arrow shaved of all superfluity, feathered strictly for aerodynamics, drawn and discharged with the barest expenditure of motion, an arrow streaming nowhere except to its target. And that target was Atlanta. A meticulous man, Johnson records everything in his electronic organizer.