100 Meter Men's Olympic Medalists (1896 - 2012) 100 Meter Men's Olympic Medalists Olympic Sprints and Relays 100 Meter Men's Olympic Medalists Usain Bolt flies across the finish line to win the 2012 Olympic 100-meter gold medal. Ian MacNicol/Getty Images By Mike Rosenbaum Updated August 23, 2016. The men's 100-meter race has been a part of every modern Olympic program, beginning with the Athens Games of 1896. During that time, three men have won consecutive Olympic 100-meter gold medals: American Archie Hahn in 1904 and then in the Intercalated Games of 1906; American Carl Lewis in 1984-88; and Jamaica's Usain Bolt, in 2008-12. Six men have tied or set the 100-meter world record during the Olympics. Oddly, the first man to do so, American Donald Lippincott, didn't earn a gold medal.

In 1912 he established the first IAAF-recognized world mark by winning a preliminary heat in 10.6 seconds, but later had to settle for a bronze medal in the final. The other record-setters all won gold medals, beginning with American Bob Hayes, who tied the world mark in 1964, and followed by Jim Hines of the U.S. (1968), Lewis (1988), Canada's Donovan Bailey (1996) and Bolt (2008).

1896 GOLD Thomas Burke, USA 12.0 SILVER Fritz Hofmann, GER 12.2 BRONZE Francis Lane, USA 12.6 BRONZE Alojz Sokol, HUN 12.6 continue reading below our video Understanding Baseball GOLD Frank Jarvis, USA 11.0 SILVER Walter Tewksbury, USA 11.1 BRONZE Stan Rowley, AUS 11.2 1904 GOLD Archie Hahn, USA 11.0 SILVER Nate Cartmell, USA 11.2 BRONZE William Hogenson, USA 11.2 1906 GOLD Archie Hahn, USA 11.2 SILVER Fay Foulton, USA 11.3 BRONZE Nigel Barker, AUS 11.3 1908 GOLD Reggie Walker, SAF 10.8 SILVER James Rector, USA 11.0 BRONZE Robert Kerr, CAN 11.0 1912 GOLD Ralph Craig, USA 10.8 SILVER Alvah Meyer, USA 10.9 BRONZE Donald Lippinc

ott, USA 10.9 1920 GOLD Charles Paddock, USA 10.8 SILVER Morris Kirksey, USA 10.9 BRONZE Harry Edward, GBR 10.9 1924 GOLD Harold Abrahams, GBR 10.6 SILVER Jackson Scholz, USA 10.8 BRONZE Arthur Porritt, NZL 10.9 1928 GOLD Percy Williams, CAN 10.8 SILVER Jack London, GBR 10.9 BRONZE Georg Lammers, GER 10.9 1932 GOLD Eddie Tolan, USA 10.3 SILVER Ralph Metcalfe, USA 10.3 BRONZE Arthur Jonath, GER 10.4 1936 GOLD Jesse Owens , USA 10.3 SILVER Ralph Metcalfe, USA 10.4 BRONZE Martinus Osendarp, HOL 10.5 1948 GOLD Harrison Dillard, USA 10.3 SILVER Barney Ewell, USA 10.4 BRONZE Lloyd LaBeach, PAN

 10.4 1952 GOLD Lindy Remigino, USA 10.79 SILVER Herbert McKenley, JAM 10.80 BRONZE Emmanuel Bailey, GBR 10.83 1956 GOLD Bobby Morrow, USA 10.62 SILVER Thane Baker, USA 10.77 BRONZE Hector Hogan, AUS 10.77 1960 GOLD Armin Hary, GER 10.32 SILVER David Sime, USA 10.35 BRONZE Peter Radford, GBR 10.42 1964 GOLD Bob Hayes, USA 10.06 SILVER Enrique Figuerola, CUB 10.25 BRONZE Harry Jerome, CAN 10.27 1968 GOLD James Hines, USA 9.95 SILVER Lennox Miller, JAM 10.04 BRONZE Charlie Greene, USA 10.07 1972 GOLD Valeriy Borzov, URS 10.14 SILVER Robert Taylor, USA

 10.24 BRONZE Lennox Miller, JAM 10.33 1976 GOLD Hasely Crawford, TRI 10.06 SILVER Don Quarrie, JAM 10.07 BRONZE Valeriy Borzov, URS 10.14 1980 GOLD Allan Wells, GBR 10.25 SILVER Silvio Tartabull, CUB 10.25 BRONZE Petur Petrov, BUL 10.39 1984 GOLD Carl Lewis , USA 9.99 SILVER Sam Graddy, USA 10.19 BRONZE Ben Johnson, CAN 10.22 1988 GOLD Carl Lewis, USA 9.92 SILVER Linford Christie, GBR 9.97 BRONZE Calvin Smith, USA 9.99 1992 GOLD Linford Christie, GBR 9.96 SILVER Frank Fredericks, NAM 10.02 BRONZE Dennis Mitchell, USA 10.04 1996 GOLD Donovan Bailey, CAN 9

.84 SILVER Frank Fredericks, NAM 9.89 BRONZE Ato Boldon, TRI 9.90 2000 GOLD Maurice Greene, USA 9.87 SILVER Ato Boldon, TRI 9.99 BRONZE Obadele Thompson, BAR 10.04 2004 GOLD Justin Gatlin, USA 9.85 SILVER Francis Obikwelu, POR 9.86 BRONZE Maurice Greene, USA 9.87 2008 GOLD Usain Bolt , JAM 9.69 SILVER Richard Thompson, TRI 9.89 BRONZE Walter Dix , USA 9.91 2012 GOLD Usain Bolt, JAM 9.63 SILVER Johan Blake, JAM 9.75 Calvin Smith 'true winner' of 1988 Seoul Olympics 100 metres final | South China Morning Post South China Morning Post Calvin Smith 'true winner' of 1988 Seoul Olympics 100 metres final Sport › Other Sport Calvin Smith 'true winner' of 1988 Seoul Olympics 100 metres

 final US sprinter Calvin Smith is the only man among the first five finishers in the Seoul Olympic Games 100 metres final untouched by a drugs scandal PUBLISHED : Sunday, 29 September, 2013, 12:00am UPDATED : Sunday, 29 September, 2013, 3:47am Print Email If anti-doping regulations had been strictly enforced, Calvin Smith, a gifted American sprinter with a distinctive upright style, would have left the 1988 Seoul Games as the Olympic 100 metres champion and world-record holder.

On the day that changed the face of the Olympics and his sport forever, Smith finished fourth behind Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis and Linford Christie. Today he is the only man among the first five finishers in Seoul untouched by a drugs scandal. "I should have been the gold medallist," Smith has said of a race that has been variously described as the dirtiest and most corrupt in history. "Throughout the last five or 10 years of my career, I knew I was being denied the chance to show that I was the best clean runner," he said. "I knew I was competing against athletes who were on drugs." Canadian Johnson was infamously hustled out of Seoul after testing positive for the steroid stanozolol following his victory in a world record 9.79 seconds. Lewis, who clocked 9.92 seconds, was promoted to the gold medal ahead of Britain's Christie, who then took the silver in front of Smith. Lewis' time was eventually recognised as the official world record when Johnson's mark of 9.83 seconds, set at the 1987 Rome world championships, was also erased.

Johnson's time in Rome was an astonishing tenth of a second faster than Smith's then world record of 9.93 seconds set at altitude in 1983. Smith won consecutive world 200 metres titles but never a global 100-metre gold. In the popular mythology of the time Lewis, a glorious sprinter and long jumper who won four gold medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, was the clean-cut hero and Johnson a scowling villain. It was an image Lewis was keen to foster. "In the old Westerns they had the guy in the white hat and the black hat," Lewis said years later. "I felt like the clean guy going out and trying to win, I was the guy in the white hat, trying to beat this evil guy." Not everybody warmed to Lewis and his incessant self-promotion coupled with a holier-than-thou attitude to drugs offenders. The sceptics felt vindicated when it was revealed in 2003 that Lewis had failed three drugs tests for stimulants during the 1988 Olympic trials.

Under the rules of the time he should have been banned from the Games but the results were covered up by the US Olympic Committee after it accepted his plea that he had innocently taken a herbal supplement. Christie failed a test for the stimulant pseudoephedrine after the final but was cleared on a split decision by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) medical commission when he argued that he had taken it inadvertently in ginseng tea. If Lewis had been banned from the Games and Christie disqualified, Smith would have been next in line for the gold medal and his world record would have stood once Johnson's times were scrubbed from the books. The noise and furore at Seoul airport when Lewis and Johnson arrived for the Olympics resembled the frenzy associated with a world heavyweight prize fight featuring Muhammad Ali. At the opening media conferences, Lewis was as articulate as always. Johnson, whose natural shyness was exacerbated by a stutter and an accent showing traces of both his native Jamaica and his adopted homeland, said little. Johnson's coach, the intense and ambitious Charlie Francis, was both fluent and relaxed while continuing to conceal an explosive back story which shocked the world when he revealed all to a Canadian government inquiry in the following year.

During the 1976 Montreal Games, Francis realised drugs were a vital ingredient in the East German success story and, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, formerly secret documents showed he was right. I knew I was denied the chance to show I was the best clean runner CALVIN SMITH Francis also knew that drugs, which allowed athletes to train harder and longer, were only one element in a sophisticated programme but at the elite level, as he explained to Johnson, a one per cent difference in performance meant a one-metre advantage in the 100 metres. "Steroids could not replace talent, or training, or a well-planned competitive programme," Francis said. "They could not transform a plodder into a champion. But they had become an essential ingredient within a complex recipe." In Seoul there were those who thought a bigger cheat than Johnson had gone unscathed. Florence Griffith-Joyner, who died 10 years after the Games at the age of 38, had been a glamorous and successful sprinter in the years leading up to Seoul but had always finished among the minor medals. In 1988, her physique noticeably altered and her voice deepened dramatically, both signs of possible steroid abuse.

"She sounds like Louis Armstrong," exclaimed one journalist at her news conference in Seoul. Of more enduring significance were the times she set in that unreal year. No woman, even 2000 Sydney Olympics triple champion Marion Jones, who eventually confessed to years of systematic doping, has even come close to Griffith-Joyner's times of 10.49 and 21.34 seconds for the 100 and 200 metres respectively. Griffith-Joyner announced her retirement in 1989, the year mandatory random drug tests were introduced. Eleven women's world records in Olympic events remain unchanged since the 1980s. Since Seoul, athletics, in general, and the sprints, in particular, have been battered by drugs scandals and the central sport of the Olympic Games has suffered increasingly in credibility as a result. At the 2004 Athens Games, Justin Gatlin won the 100-200 double for the US after serving a one-year ban following a positive test for amphetamines. The sentence had been halved when the world governing body accepted he had taken a prescribed medicine for attention deficit disorder.

Two years later he again tested positive, this time for excessive levels of the male sex hormone testosterone, and was banned for eight years, later reduced to four. Gatlin worked with Trevor Graham, the coach who initiated a drugs scandal equivalent to the Johnson furore when he sent a syringe containing an undetectable steroid called THG to the US Anti-Doping Agency. A test was quickly devised for the drug manufactured by the Balco laboratory in California and a number of prominent athletes in track and field and baseball were implicated, including Britain's European 100 metres champion Dwain Chambers. Jones, who won three gold medals in Sydney after announcing she wanted to go one better than Lewis and Jesse Owens by winning five titles, was the biggest victim of the Balco scandal. After years of denial she finally confessed she had been on a drugs regime similar to Johnson and was imprisoned for lying to federal investigators. Other sprinters banned as a result of the Balco investigations were her former partner Tim Montgomery, who was the first man to run faster than Johnson's Seoul mark, and double world women's sprint champion Kelli White.

To its credit, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has consistently uncovered drugs cheats over the 25 years since Seoul. It has also pointed out that other prominent Olympic sports, notably weightlifting and cycling, have been bedevilled by doping. However, the positive tests keep coming and this year has been a bad one for the world of track and field. Former 100 metres world-record holder Asafa Powell of Jamaica and former world champion Tyson Gay from the US both missed last month's Moscow world championships after positive drugs tests which were revealed on the same day. Jamaica, the Caribbean island which currently dominates world sprinting, was struck by another doping scandal when twice Olympic 200 metres gold medallist Veronica Campbell-Brown was suspended by her national federation after a positive test for a banned diuretic. Officials said a dozen athletes had been sanctioned after positive drugs tests in the past five years. Kenya, a country long regarded as a storehouse of natural long-distance talent, has also been implicated in doping with four positives in the space of 12 months. There has also been a rash of positive tests in Russia and Turkey.

Johnson, who is now an anti-doping campaigner after a lifetime of bad career choices, accepts his decision to take drugs ruined his life. He said recently that athletes "are still testing positive week after week, still making the same mistakes I made. Athletes' perceptions need to change. The system needs to change." Reuters Hall of Shame Katerina Thanou/ Kostas Kenteris (Greece). Thanou (100 metres silver medallist in Sydney) and her Greek team mate Kenteris (Sydney 200 metres champion) were accused of faking a motorcycle crash just before the 2004 Athens Olympics to skip a dope test. They were later given two-year bans. Katrin Krabbe (Germany). Double sprint champion at the 1991 world championships in Tokyo who never competed at an Olympics after a ban for the anabolic agent clenbuterol. Linford Christie (Britain). At 32, the oldest man to win the Olympic 100 metres title with victory in Barcelona in 1992. Seven years later, in semi-retirement, tested positive for the steroid nandrolone. Dennis Mitchell (US).

The American, who won gold as part of the US 4x100 metres relay team at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, was banned for two years in 1998 for excessive levels of the male sex hormone testosterone. Merlene Ottey (Slovenia). Jamaican-born sprinter who won world 200 titles but was banned from the 1999 Seville world athletics championships after a positive test for nandrolone. Later cleared by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). Dwain Chambers (Britain). Finished fourth in the 100 final at the 2000 Sydney Olympics but was banned for two years in 2003 after testing positive for the designer steroid THG in the Balco laboratory scandal. Tim Montgomery (US). Also implicated in the doping scandal that engulfed the San Francisco Balco laboratory. The American set a 100 metres world record of 9.78 in 2002 but later admitted to doping at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Marion Jones (US).

Montgomery's partner and the biggest victim of the Balco scandal, Jones became the first woman to win five track and field medals at a single Olympics at Sydney 2000. After years of denial, she confessed to being a drugs cheat and was jailed for lying to federal investigators. Kelli White (US). Another Balco victim who admitted to using a cocktail of drugs after winning the 100-200 double at the 2003 Paris world championships. Justin Gatlin (US). The American, who won gold in the 100 at the 2004 Athens Olympics, has served two doping bans, including four years for excessive levels of testosterone. He won 100 metres bronze at the 2012 London Olympics and two silvers at this year's world championships. Veronica Campbell-Brown (Jamaica). Twice Olympic 200 metres champion who is suspended after testing positive for a banned diuretic at a meeting in May this year. Sherone Simpson (Jamaica).

Gold medallist at the 2004 Olympics in Athens and a silver medallist last year in London as part of Jamaica's 4x100 metres relay teams, Simpson tested positive for the banned stimulant oxilofrine at June's Jamaican athletics championships. Asafa Powell (Jamaica). Held the 100 world record between 2005 and 2008. Tested positive for oxilofrine at the national championships in June. Tyson Gay (US). Completed a memorable sweep of sprint titles at the 2007 world championships in Osaka when he won the 100 and 200 metres and was part of the triumphant US 4x100 metres relay team. Tested positive for an unidentified substance in an out-of-competition test in May this year. Kelly-Ann Baptiste (Trinidad & Tobago). A member of Gay's training group and 2011 world 100 metres bronze medallist, she withdrew from last month's Moscow world championships on the opening day of competition for a doping violation.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: True winner of the 'dirtiest race' 50 stunning Olympic moments No36: Linford Christie wins gold in 1992 | Rob Bagchi | Sport | The Guardian 50 stunning Olympic moments 50 stunning Olympic moments No36: Linford Christie wins gold in 1992 The Great Britain team captain went one better than his silver at Seoul 1988 when at the age of 32 he became the oldest person to capture 100m Olympic gold and only the third Briton Great Britain's Linford Christie takes gold in the 100 metres at Barcelona in 1992, at 32 the oldest person ever to do so. Photograph: BTS/Popperfoto Tuesday 5 June 2012 07.20 EDT First published on Tuesday 5 June 2012 07.20 EDT Share on Messenger Close The two pitfalls confronting considerations of Linford Christie’s victory in the 100m at the Barcelona Games in 1992 are cynicism and naivety.

How much more straightforward the assignment would be were it not for Christie’s positive test for nandrolone in 1999 and subsequent two-year ban from athletics? Ten to watch: meet Team GB's sporting superheroes Read more He has always maintained his innocence of doping and last year insisted in an interview with the Independent on Sunday’s Alan Hubbard that his sample had been contaminated. Yet whether you find his defence plausible or not – or similar arguments about tainted nutritional supplements a number of high-profile runners that year, including Merlene Ottey, Dieter Baumann, Mark Richardson and Dougie Walker, say they took in ignorance – it is impossible to overlook two facts: his urine sample was found to contain almost 100 times the legal limit of nandrolone metabolites and that the International Association of Athletics Federations overruled UK Athletics’ not guilty verdict and suspended Christie. Suspicion, once raised, is inextinguishable.

And because of what happened at the Seoul Games in 1988 – when he tested positive for pseudoephedrine after a 200m heat but was allowed to keep his 100m silver medal on an 11-10 vote by the disciplinary committee which gave him the benefit of the doubt that the substance had been unwittingly imbibed when drinking ginseng tea – his critics’ mistrust will never be assuaged. But for all the conjecture, no one has the proof or right to revoke his Olympic gold nor any of the numerous other medals in European, Commonwealth and World competition. What cannot be denied either is that for anyone who witnessed his performance in Montjuïc that glorious August night in 1992, Christie’s triumph truly was a stunning Olympic moment. A year before the Games, at the world championships in Tokyo, Christie finished fourth in the 100m final behind the double Olympic champion Carl Lewis , Leroy Burrell and Dennis Mitchell. Lewis broke the world record in 9.86sec, shaving 0.04 off the benchmark set by Burrell two months earlier and the men in second and third also established new personal bests.

Christie’s 9.92 was the fastest ever by a European but he was despondent when interviewed by the BBC’s Brendan Foster after the race, saying that he had reached his peak at the age of 31 and there were no faster times in his ageing legs. Foster had to spend a good two minutes of compelling television persuading the Great Britain team captain why retirement after running his best time would be a profligate folly. Live on air, Foster’s ardent and sympathetic campaigning changed the sprinter’s mind. Since his breakthrough season in 1986, age had always been an issue. The slow starter, as the poet Louis MacNeice observed about himself, “took his time, and found his time and talent gone”. Precisely that fear, that a lack of discipline and diligence during the early part of his career had fatally undermined his prospects of fulfilling his potential, was the spectre at almost all his feasts. Until 1992 there were at least as many what-ifs as well dones. Christie was brought up by his grandmother Anita in St Andrew, Jamaica, the parish that spreads north, west and east from Kingston up to the Blue Mountains.

“My grandmother was strict and kept me on the straight and narrow,” he said. “In Jamaica, before she sent me to the shops, she would spit on the ground and say: ‘Don’t let it dry before you come back.’ You knew you had to run, even though, like most kids, I wanted to hang out with my friends. So I ran to the shop and back – it was my first experience of back-to-back training.” At the age of seven he moved to Shepherd’s Bush in west London to join his parents and took up athletics at Henry Compton school in Fulham in his teens. Living on Loftus Road, football was understandably his first love, taking inspiration from the maverick charm of QPR’s Rodney Marsh and the exemplary style and verve of Manchester United’s George Best. It was while playing the game at school that he was spotted and recruited for the athletics team but he did not commit himself to the sport, and even then not all that seriously, until he joined Thames Valley Harriers when he was 19.

In 1979 he began to train with Ron Roddan, a silver-haired former sprinter who became his first and only coach, at the West London Stadium which lies in the shadow of Hammersmith hospital and HMP Wormwood Scrubs in Acton, barely a mile north of Christie’s parental home. For years he partied as much as he trained and said that the culture of growing up in a first-generation immigrant West Indian family meant that his focus was elsewhere. “You helped around the home, you did your schoolwork and then you got a job, that was your priority,” he told the Observer’s Kevin Mitchell. “No one knew really you could make a career from sport.” He made his contribution to the family as a cashier for the Co-op and later as an Inland Revenue clerk. He raced alongside Kermit Bentham and Mike McFarlane who called him “Horse” because they felt he galloped all over his lane. He got by on talent rather than technique and hard work – beating better-prepared athletes gave him a thrill.

If you have ever had a teacher who trotted out the old line about how they would always take the side of the mediocre-minded who put the effort in rather than the clever but indolent, you can guess how the GB coaches felt about that. Success domestically at the inter-counties and other meets, however, convinced Christie he should be on the relay team for the 1984 Los Angeles Games. He was not picked and when he confronted the coach to ask the reason for his omission, Frank Dick said: “Because you’re not good enough.” Instead of mollycoddling him with sympathy, Roddan wrote to Christie saying he should knuckle down or walk away. Andy Norman, the former policeman turned promotions director of the British Athletic Federation, also sent him a letter, arguing that a sprinter who had a personal best of 10.5 without giving it his all had the capability of becoming Europe’s best if he dedicated himself to the sport. He wasn’t invited to the elite meetings, said Norman who controlled the purse-strings and much else in the sport, “because you couldn’t fill a phone box” but suggested that could quickly be redressed if he changed his attitude.

Christie was finally convinced by the arguments and committed himself to gambling all his energies on training. Out went the long afternoons playing dominoes, the rum-and-blackcurrants and the clubbing and partying that kept him out so late he often came home with the milk bottles. “He made up his mind that he was going to be the best and he did everything necessary to achieve that,” Roddan said in 1993. “A lot of people have said the same thing. But they don’t do the work. Linford is a very receptive athlete.” But was it too late? “I was in a room with these guys from athletics and I said I wanted to be Olympic champion,” he said after his first year of intensive training. “They all said, at 26, I was already too old. I said: ‘They say that your sexual peak is at 19, but how many of you guys believe that?’ They all laughed. But they knew I was right, too.” In 1986 he won his first international championship, in the 200m at the European indoors and was runner-up to Ben Johnson in the 100m at the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh.

Four years on from his disappointment over Los Angeles, his third-place in the 100m final in Seoul was upgraded to silver behind Carl Lewis after Johnson’s disqualification, and in 1990 he again won Commonwealth as well as European indoor and outdoor titles. As a black man in west London in the 1980s he was the victim of police violence, harassment and abuse when repeatedly stopped while driving through his home borough. On one occasion he was waved to a halt, provocatively questioned and arrested while the Metropolitan police investigated the ownership of a sponsored car he was driving. At court, after the charges were dropped, the police apologised and paid him damages. Despite that, his patriotism never wavered and the first thing he targeted after winning a medal was a union flag to drape around his shoulders on the victory lap. His motivation for gold in Barcelona was, he said, “Roddan and the people”. In general his relationship with the British newspapers was appalling. He felt they were too critical, damning even, while some of the athletics’ press corps felt Christie was uncooperative, arrogantly antagonistic and rude.

On the eve of Barcelona he told Hugh McIlvanney how he took strength from bigots’ prejudices against him, his maltreatment by the police and what he perceived to be the hostility of disrespectful writers in memorable terms. “Every time they shit on my head, I wear a new hat,” he said. “All the bad stuff has proved my mental strength.” His first team-mates also called him “Horse” because of his long legs and the problems they caused him in picking up his stride. After he began to adopt a higher knee lift in 1985 and generate more power from his hips, he started to resemble his great rival Lewis in style but acknowledged before the Games that he still had to correct the problem that had hindered him. He may have coined that evocative phrase about always going “on the B of the Bang” yet he was, in truth, an erratic starter. “I have a habit of going side to side in the first two or three strides and that means vital fractions of seconds are being lost,” he said. “I must go on striving to gear everything so that I am driving straight forward.

You must run as economically as possible, get the maximum miles per gallon.” He honed his start during the winter in Australia and must have been heartened in July after a cat and mouse European outdoor season racing against Olapade Adeninken, Frankie Fredericks, Mitchell and Burrell when he heard the news that the defending champion, Lewis, had failed to make the USA team for the 100m at the trials in Louisiana. “Maybe it’s someone else’s turn,” said Christie. It proved to be his turn. The unofficial motto for those attempting to qualify for Barcelona, “no pain, no Spain”, seemed apt even after their arrival and the complaints about inadequate facilities, in particular the short beds, were rife. The GB team’s focus was temporarily distracted when Jason Livingston, the reigning European indoor 60m champion, tested positive for the steroid methandienone and was sent home. Christie was said to have counselled his 21-year-old team-mate long into the night after his expulsion and before his own heat and quarter-final.

Christie won both, the first after a lumbering start in 10.48, the second in a season equal-best 10.07 which pushed Burrell into second place. In the semi-final Burrell had his revenge, winning in 9.97 with Christie behind him in 10 dead. “I was in control the whole way, whereas Leroy was running really hard,” the GB captain said three years later. At the time, however, despite taking confidence from improving his time with each race, he maintained that Burrell and Mitchell were favourites. Even before he took his place at the start line shortly before 7pm BST on Saturday 1 August, he looked fully focused, lost in a zone of his own concerns. The BBC’s commentary team elaborated on his tunnel vision and in Christie’s case it was literally true. “Barcelona was the first time I went to the blocks imagining my lane was a tunnel, with everything else on either side a blur,” he wrote. The first time they crouched in their blocks, Burrell false-started, the second time Mitchell raised his hand and they were all told to stand up.

At last they went off at the third attempt, Fredericks powering marginally ahead in the first 20m but Christie’s opening strides were smooth and true. At 50m he edged ahead, pumping his arms and knees, his eyes fixed straight ahead, unblinking on the line and confident that his second-phase surge was the strongest in the field, and he knew he had won. He crossed it in 9.96, raised his arms to form a Y and smiled briefly before skipping towards the crowd. He took his customary lap with the union flag and received his medal with a lump in his throat but says he was too scared to cry in case the pictures were endlessly replayed and used to mock him. Six weeks before the Games he said his only aim was “to get from one end of the track to the other as fast as possible for Queen and country”. He was certainly cheered home by the latter to win, as David Coleman put it, “the greatest prize in sport”. “When I began to wind down, I felt mentally exhausted,” he wrote in his autobiography. “It may be 10 seconds but that had been 10 years to me.

Mentally, physically and spiritually, it’s tough because of the need to dig in, concentrate, avoid mistakes and get everything right. For those 10 seconds you are putting everything you’ve got in your body into running 100m. People say 100m is not that far. They should try running it. It’s a long, long way.” However many more twists and turns that long journey still had to go, the abiding memory of that night is Britain’s pride in its singular sprinter and his stunning Olympic moment. What the Observer said Hugh McIlvanney 2 August, 1992 Linford Christie turned the Olympic 100 metres final into a graceful slaughter as his long stride almost disdainfully overwhelmed the sprinting power of America and Africa to take the greatest gold medal victory ever achieved by a British athlete. The most satisfying 10 seconds of Christie’s life (9.96 to be precise) did not permit the briefest flicker of serious threat from any of the seven outstanding sprinters from five nations lined up against him.

When he had crossed the line a couple of relaxed strides ahead of Namibia’s Frankie Fredericks it was hard to believe how unchallengable his supremacy has been on the way to becoming, at 32, the oldest 100 metres champion in Olympic history. It was, however, easy to accept his declaration that the whole of his athletic career – and especially the past decade of intense effort in alliance with his coach and trusted friend, Ron Roddan – had been a rehearsal for 7pm British time (and he was determined that it should be the most British of times) in the Montjuïc Stadium last night. “Nothing was going to distract me,” he said later, echoing the theme of inviolable concentration he had articulated for me in the rather different surroundings of a rain-swept West London Stadium three weeks before. Now, in Spain, in the biggest test of all, he needed every vestige of the single-mindedness he had honed over long years of international competition and on countless glamorous nights at that simple training ground.

First he had to cope with the unsettling effects of a false start but there was consolation in the knowledge that it was precipitated by Leroy Burrell, the former holder of the world record at 100 metres and the betting favourite to win last night. Burrell had beaten Christie in a good semi-final and his 9.97 was the fastest time ever recorded into a headwind, but after ruining one start the American had to be concerned about the risks of disqualification. There may have been a greater element of calculation involved when the second US contender, Dennis Mitchell, suddenly raised a hand after the field had settled down for another attempt at a getaway. Mitchell apparently wanted a few seconds to compose himself and no doubt would have welcomed the bonus of discomfiting one or two others. But if he had Christie in mind, his was a forlorn hope. The captain of the British men’s athletics team had found himself handling far more distressing problems earlier in the week when his former training companion, Jason Livingston, failed a drug test and was packed off home.

Christie was determined to lift his team’s morale with a perfect run for the gold medal and once the starter had sent them away at last, that was pretty much what he produced. At 6ft 2½in and 14 stone, he is beautifully constructed for the job, both lithe and muscular. From the moment he launched himself smoothly from his blocks, avoiding the slightly lurching start that has often slowed him over the first 15 metres, he was in absolute command. Fredericks may have started fractionally better but the difference was minimal and almost immediately it was utterly irrelevant. By halfway, the large British contingent in the crowd could roar confidently and 25 metres short of the line he was plainly out of reach. Great Britain to send ‘best-prepared athletics team’ to Rio Olympics Read more At the finish he was six one-hundredths of a second in front of Fredericks, with Mitchell in third place and Burrell labouring back in fifth. The nearest the great American came to Christie was when they stood in the adjoining lanes, five and six, at the start. Fredericks was obviously a far happier man, having brought distinction to Namibia, a country competing at the Olympics for the first time.

But no one was as happy as Christie when he carried an immense union flag on his lap of honour and blew kisses to his supporters. He was born in Jamaica but raised in West London and, in spite of having more than his fair share of racist maltreatment, he is impressively patriotic. Two other British sprinters have won this title but the Americans were absent because of a boycott when Alan Wells of Scotland took it in Moscow 12 years ago and it was in the Chariots of Fire era that Harold Abrahams claimed his gold at the 1924 Games. “I can’t afford to be emotional,” Christie said at his victor’s interview. “I’ve got other races to run. I must concentrate on my next job, the 200 metres. OK, there was no Carl Lewis, no Ben Johnson. It’s a shame Carl wasn’t there but today was my day.” And one that will be remembered in Britain as long as foot-racing remains a sport. BBC - Primary History - Famous People - Sebastian Coe Why is Sebastian Coe famous? Who is Seb Coe? Sebastian ('Seb') Coe won Olympic gold medals as a runner.

Later he played a big part in bringing the 2012 Olympic Games to London. Coe became famous as an athlete . He was one of the great runners of all time. What kind of runner was he? Coe was a very fast runner. He was best over 'middle distances': 400 metres, 800 metres and 1500 metres. He won four Olympic medals. He set 12 world records - a world record is when someone does something better than anyone else before. What did he do after running? After success as a runner in two Olympic Games, Coe became an MP . He later led the campaign to bring the 2012 Olympic Games to Britain. Early life The Coe family Sebastian Newbold Coe was born in London on 29 September 1956. He was the oldest of four children, two boys and two girls. His father Peter was an engineer. His mother Angela was an actress. She was brought up in India. Seb's grandfather was Indian. Father's war His father Peter was a sailor during World War II. Peter Coe's ship was sunk by a torpedo . Peter was rescued from the sea by a German ship.

On the way to a prison camp, he escaped. He managed to get back to Britain. Seb Coe learned a lot from his father. Peter Coe never forgot his lucky escape. Always running Seb grew up in the city of Sheffield in Yorkshire. He loved to run. He later said 'I never walked anywhere'. He began running in races at age 12. Peter Coe saw that his son was going to be a star athlete . Father and son Peter Coe had never trained a runner. He read books about athletics. He and Seb worked hard to make Seb stronger and faster. Seb used to run up hills. Seb's dad waited at the top. He gave him a ride down, so Seb did not hurt his legs running downhill. A rival In 1972, Seb first met another fast runner. The boy's name was Steve Ovett. Soon, Coe and Ovett became rivals on the running track. Breaking records In 1973, Seb won the English Schools 3000-metres championship. He was also schools cross-country champion. When he left school, Coe went to Loughborough University.

Now a star runner, he was about to get even better. World records In 1979, Seb Coe set three world records in 41 days! He ran 800 metres, 1 mile, and 1500 metres faster than anyone before. He set 12 world records altogether. He broke some records several times. His fastest time for 800 metres, in 1981, was not beaten by another runner until 1997. The 1980 Olympic Games Seb Coe and Steve Ovett ran for Britain in the 1980 Olympic Games . The Games took place in Moscow (Russia). Most people expected Coe to be best in the 800 metres. But Ovett won. Coe came second. Then came the 1500 metres race. This time Ovett was the favourite. But Coe won the gold medal . The 1984 Olympic Games The 1984 Olympic Games were held in Los Angeles (USA). Coe won the 1500 metres.

No man had ever won the 1500m race at two Olympic Games, one after the other. Britain's Steve Cram came second. Coe won a silver medal in the 800 metres race. Last big win Coe's last big win was in 1986. He won the 800 metres in the European Championships. It was his only gold medal at 800 metres, supposed to be his 'best' race. After athletics No more running? Seb Coe did not run in the 1988 Olympic Games because of illness. He retired from athletics in 1990. In 1992, Seb Coe was elected to Parliament. He was an MP until 1997. He worked in politics for a time after that. World Sport Coe helped to run international sport. From 2004 he led the team behind the bid to bring the Olympic Games to Britain. In 2005, the Games were awarded to London. Everyone in the bid team worked hard to make sure that everything was ready for 2012. Coe also spoke out against drugs in sport.

Drugs can help people get stronger or run faster. This is wrong, and unfair in sport. Heroes of the track Seb Coe received many awards. In 2000, he was made Lord Coe. In 2006, he received a knighthood . Coe is one of the all-time heroes of British athletics. Here are some more: Roger Bannister - the first person to run a mile in under 4 minutes (1954) Steve Ovett - won an Olympic gold medal in 1980 Daley Thompson - won two Olympic gold medals (1980,1984) Sally Gunnell - won an Olympic gold in 1992 Linford Christie - won an Olympic gold in 1992 Kelly Holmes - won two Olympic golds in 2004 Christine Uhuruogu - won an Olympic gold medal in 2008 Sport for all People all over the world enjoy sport. 'Sport is a universal language' said Seb Coe. Not everyone can run like Seb Coe. But everyone can enjoy taking part. It doesn't matter what sport, or how good you are!

The Olympic Games When did the Olympics begin? The Ancient Greeks started the Olympic Games in 776 BC. The games were held every four years until AD 393. The Greeks had running races, jumping and throwing. Their Games included wrestling, boxing, horse racing, chariot races, and music and poetry too. The modern Games The modern Olympic Games began in 1896, in Athens (Greece). They have been held every four years since, except during World War I and World War II . The Olympic Games were first held in Britain in 1908. In 1948, the Olympic Games were held in London again. What are the Paralympics? The first 'wheelchair Games' were in 1948. Soldiers hurt in World War II took part. Today the Paralympic Games for disabled athletes are part of the Olympics. When did the Winter Games start? The first Winter Olympics were in 1924. The Winter Games are for 'winter sports', such as skiing, ice skating, snowboarding and ice hockey. The Games today The Olympic Games have got bigger and bigger.

Athletes from more than 200 countries take part, and there are lots of sports. As well as athletics, the Games include swimming, sailing, horse riding, cycling, football, tennis, hockey, rowing, gymnastics and basketball. There are lots more too, to find out about! Usain Bolt wins 100m final at London 2012 Olympics | Daily Mail Online MEDALS TABLE Fittingly, it was the weekend that celebrated 50 years of Jamaican independence. Here were just 9.63 blistering seconds of it. At the end of the shortest Olympic race in history, two men were quite noticeably independent and away from the rest of the field. There was daylight between Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake, but clear air again between Blake and the chasing pack. The Jamaicans — friends, training partners at the Racers Club in Kingston, now the fiercest rivals on the track — were out on their own. When it came down to it, however, one Jamaican was simply more independent than the other. Bolt did it again. He did it as he said he would. As predicted, this was his time.

Bolt became the first athlete this century to retain his Olympic 100 metres title, the first since Carl Lewis in 1988. Nobody stays the fastest man in the world for long and there were many who thought Bolt would repeat the brief flickering of many past champions. They were wrong, so very wrong.

*SCROLL DOWN TO WATCH VIDEO OF USAIN BOLT'S VICTORY IN THE 100 FINAL Simply the best: Usain Bolt crosses the finishing line to win gold in the men's 100 metres final The Olympic 100m champions 2012 London - Usain Bolt (Jamaica) 9.63 2008 Beijing - Usain Bolt (Jamaica) 9.69 2004 Athens - Justin Gatlin (USA) 9.85 2000 Sydney - Maurice Greene (USA) 9.87 1996 Atlanta - Donovan Bailey (CAN) 9.84 1992 Barcelona - Linford Christie (GBR) 9.96 1988 Seoul - Carl Lewis (USA) * Ben Johnson (CAN) won in 9.79 but was later disqualified.

1984 Los Angeles - Carl Lewis (USA) 9.99 1980 Moscow - Alan Wells (GBR) 10.25 1976 Montreal - Hasely Crawford (TRI) 10.06 1972 Munich - Valeriy Borzov (SOV) 10.14 1968 Mexico City - Jim Hines (USA) 9.95 1964 Tokyo - Bob Hayes (USA) 10.0 1960 Rome - Armin Hary (GER) 10.2 1956 Melbourne - Bobby Morrow (USA) 10.62 1952 Helsinki - Lindy Remigino (USA) 10.79 1948 London - Harrison Dillard (USA) 10.3 1936 Berlin - Jesse Owens (USA) 10.3 Having given the field, even the brilliant Blake, a head start, he then accelerated. It was as if Batman had flicked the switch on the Batmobile, the one that sends the machine into warp speed.

We almost expected to see an ignition of white-hot flame at Bolt’s tail. And that is what Bolt is, in essence. A latter-day superhero. He draped the Jamaican flag around his shoulders like a Caped Crusader, too, and mimed firing his arrow as if an Olympian of old. He is old, Bolt, yet so very new. His talent is one of the purest skills of all: the ability to run faster than any other man. But his manner is modern. He knows his place in sport’s galaxy, his status, and what it represents. At the pinnacle stands the heavyweight boxing champion and the world’s fastest man; except Bolt has more personality in his discarded woolly hat than the Klitschko brothers have in a lifetime of perfect punishing victories. If Bolt were a boxer, even Muhammad Ali’s Greatest status might have been under threat. He is charismatic, mesmerising. Once he entered the track nobody could take their eyes from him; and then when he started running, blink, and he was gone. At the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton, Bolt as Batman was further emphasised. Jamaica Day celebrations in the area had segued jubilantly into the main event of the night.

On the big screen, The Dark Knight Rises gave way to Bolt and a free showing of the BBC Olympics coverage played to an audience comprising the nearest thing a Jamaican athlete could get to a partisan crowd, so far from his island. Not that he could have heard them as he sped into history. Not that any athlete could hear much above the cacophony of the Olympic Stadium. After Britain’s Super Saturday, this was tagged Supersonic Sunday, as if any further showbiz hype was required. The fastest men in the world know they are the players of the Olympic meeting without further encouragement. They preen, they strut, they perform for the cameras, and that is just in the heats.

Dip for the line: Bolt finishes ahead of Yohan Blake (second right) and Justin Gatlin (third right) to win the Olympic gold medal Lightning Bolt: The Jamaican set a new Olympic record after winning the 100m in a time of 9.63 seconds Making his point: Bolt celebrates after crossing the finishing line in first in the 100m final at the London Olympic Games History boy: Bolt bathes in the glory of his brilliant victory in London's Olympic Stadium The finalists: (from left) Churandy Martina, Ryan Bailey, Usain Bolt, Justin Gatlin, Yohan Blake, Tyson Gay, Asafa Powell and Richard Thompson Close call: Bolt did not run away with the race as he had done four years ago in Beijing, with Blake, Gatlin and Gay all running super quick times Twitter reaction to Bolt's victory Joey Barton: 'Bolt = Ridiculous' Rio Ferdinand: 'What a character Bolt is, guys throwing shapes pre race... can't imagine a football player doing that before the biggest game of their life!' Ferdinand again: 'Wow, Usain Bolt... out of this world type athlete!

The 100metres final is the best sport to watch in the Olympics...' Piers Morgan: 'UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE CENTURY: '"I brought it..." @usainbolt By the time of the main event, Bolt was in his element. He took off his black and gold headwear and walked casually to the start line, a wink here, a cocky grin there, utterly assured after all the uncertainty. His semi-final heat time was already a statement of intent. Having sped past the field to finish a comfortable first, he pointed a finger to the sky. No 1, still. Catch me if you can. It was a portent. He walked through the media interview area tight-lipped, but the high-fives for loitering journalists spoke as eloquently as any prediction. When Bolt’s name was announced, he went through his showman’s routine. He shut his eyes, pretended to be deeply focused, then lifted his head up with a broad grin and made a running gesture with his fingers, put them to his forehead and then away in a salute. The crowd loved it. Then again, they loved Boris Johnson, too, when his face came up on the big screen.

Pay 750 quid for tickets and you probably need to love everything to get your money’s worth. At the semi-final Bolt had thrown in a little shadow boxing, probably as a nod to his great friend Lennox Lewis. Second time around, no doubt keen to vary his repertoire, he mimed DJ moves. Trademark: Bolt strikes his usual pose for the cameras after winning the 100m final in London Mummy's boy: The sprinter's mother Jennifer (centre) and silver medallist Blake (centre left) join the celebrations Kneesy does it: Bolt kneels on the running track after sealing his place in history once again It is easy to root for Bolt, the way it was Ali, the way it is any man who combines supreme athleticism with charm and personality. Bolt has such charisma. Even operating from a rare position of vulnerability, his demeanour suggested he was the man to beat. So it proved. The moment the pistol sounded, all doubts about his fitness evaporated.

Slow out of the blocks, as he would be at 6ft 5in from a crouching position, it was instantly the Bolt of old, motoring as if slung from a catapult, tearing up the super-fast surface as if it would curl up beneath his feet as he went. Jamaica, Kingston, Stratford, Brixton, he did them all proud, it was as if the world is spun by his spikes. And Bolt needed to be at his best for this, have no doubt. From third-placed Justin Gatlin to Richard Thompson of Trinidad and Tobago in seventh, every runner was the fastest for his position in an Olympic final. Get set... go: The sprinter's fly out of their starting blocks - but Bolt did not make a quick getaway If Bolt had been 95 per cent fit as was once claimed, he would not have been able to live with many of them, let alone the noble Blake. There was no showboating on the line this time. Blake would have gobbled him up. In the circumstances, with all his fitness worries and that false start at the World Championships to weigh him down, it was an astonishing run. So what next?

Bolt is still just 25 and no man has ever won the 100m title three times. Unlike swimming, sprinting is not exactly a young man’s game. Linford Christie won gold in Barcelona at the age of 32, so there is still time. Bolt could set a record in Olympic sprinting that would be hard to beat; as if he has not done that already. Short term, there is the small matter of the 200m here on Thursday. No one has ever retained that title. So Bolt is on course for a remarkable double later this week: always providing he can be kept clear of that party at the Ritzy.

Toy story: Bolt helps London 2012 mascot 'Wenlock' strike his famous pose Fire in the belly: The Olympic Flame burns brightly as 100m champion Bolt runs on his lap of honour Unforgettable moments: Bolt celebrates glory in London's iconic Olympic Stadium Cruise control: Usain Bolt (right) wins his 100m semi-final ahead of Britain's Dwain Chambers (left) Plenty left in the tank: Bolt crosses the finishing line in a time of 9.87 secs in the second 100m semi-final Not quite enough: British sprinter Dwain Chambers looks in vain at the scoreboard after his race Rising star: Gemili (centre) proved he has a bright future after just missing out on the final Fastest of all: American Justin Gatlin (right) qualified fastest for the final in 9.82secs Ever the showman: Jamaican superstar Bolt plays up for the crowd in London ahead of his race USAIN BOLT FACTFILE 1986: Born August 21 in Trelawny, Jamaica.

2002: At the age of 15 Bolt wins gold in the 200m and silver in both the 4x100m and 4x400m relays at the 2002 World Junior Championships in Kingston. 2003: Wins gold in the 200m at World Youth Championships in Sherbrooke. 2004: Becomes first junior to break the 20-second mark in the 200m, clocking 19.93 seconds. 2005: Claims gold medal in the 200m at the Central American and Caribbean Championships with a time of 20.03secs. 2007: Wins 200m silver at World Championships in Osaka, and also wins silver as a member of the 4x100m relay. We've been here before: Bolt stuns the world by winning gold in Beijing in 2008 2008: May 3 - Posts the second-fastest 100m time in history at the Jamaica Invitational, clocking 9.76secs.

May 31 - Breaks the world record in the 100m at the Reebok Grand Prix, posting a time of 9.72secs in only his fifth race over the distance. July 13 - Beats his personal best in the 200m, finishing in 19.67 seconds in Athens to register the fastest time over the distance in 2008 and the fifth-fastest 200m time ever. August 16 - Wins 100m gold at the Beijing Olympics, lowering his previous world record to 9.69secs. August 20 - Completes Olympic sprint double, winning the 200m in a new world record time of 19.30secs. August 22 - Runs third leg as Jamaica score Olympic 4x100m relay victory in world record time of 37.10secs. November 23 - Voted IAAF World Male Athlete of the Year. 2009: April 29 - Escapes serious injury when his BMW M3 car skids off road outside of Kingston and overturns. Requires minor foot surgery.

May 17 - Wins Manchester Great City Games 150m in world best time of 14.35secs. Covered first 100m in 9.91sec and last 100m with flying start in 8.70secs. June 10 - Wins 2009 Laureus World Sportsman of the Year. August 16 - Wins gold medal in 100m at World Championships in Berlin, with new world record time of 9.58 seconds. August 20 - Claims second gold medal at World Championships in Berlin, with new world record time of 19.19 seconds over 200 metres. 2010: August 6 - Suffers only the second loss of his career in a 100m final, losing to Tyson Gay in Stockholm 2011: August 28 - Disqualified for a false start in the 100m final at the World Championships in Daegu. Training partner Yohan Blake goes on to take gold.

September 3 - Retains his world 200m title and later goes on to help Jamaica win the 4x100m relay in a new world record time of 37.04 2012: June - Loses to Blake over both 100 and 200m at the Jamaican Olympic trials, but seals his place on the team for London. July 26 - Admits he had been suffering from a stiff back which was causing a hamstring problem, but insists he is ready to defend his titles. August 5 - Retains Olympic 100m title in 9.63s, the second quickest time in history.

Question: Who is the oldest man to win Olympic Gold at 100 metres?
Answer: Linford Christie