Florence Griffith-Joyner
Florence Griffith in 1988
Florence Delorez Griffith-Joyner (December 21, 1959 – September 21, 1998), also known as Flo-Jo, was an American track and field athlete. She is considered the “fastest woman of all time” based on the fact that the world records she set in 1988 for both the 100 metres and 200 metres still stand and have never been seriously challenged. She died in her sleep as the result of an epileptic seizure in 1998 at the age of 38.
Since 1997 the International Athletics Annual of the Association of Track and Field Statisticians has listed this performance as “probably strongly wind assisted, but recognized as a world record. Griffith-Joyner’s coach later stated that he believed her 10.49 second time had been wind-assisted. Besides this one race, Griffith-Joyner’s fastest time in this sprint was 10.61 seconds, which would also be the unbroken world record.
Note that Carmelita Jeter‘s fasted time of 10.64 seconds is the second-fastest time for this distance by a woman sprinter.
By now known to the world as “Flo-Jo”, Griffith-Joyner was the big favorite for the titles in the sprint events at the 1988 Summer Olympics. In the 100-metre final, she ran a wind-assisted 10.54, beating her nearest rival Evelyn Ashford by 0.30 seconds. In the 200-metre semifinal, she set the world record of 21.56 seconds, and then she broke this record again in winning in the finals by 0.40 seconds with her time of 21.34 seconds.
At the same Olympic trials Griffith-Joyner also ran with the four by 100-metre relay and the four by 400-metre relay teams. Her team won first place in the 100m relay and second place in the 400m relay. Their time is still the second fastest in history, following the winner of this race. This was her first internationally-rated four by 400-metre relay. Griffith-Joyner was the winner of the James E. Sullivan Award of 1988 as the top amateur athlete (male or female) in the United States. She retired from competition shortly after that.
Griffith-Joyner’s performance in the 100-metre sprint was ranked number 98 on British television’s 100 Greatest Sporting Moments, which was telecast in 2002.
In 1996, Griffith-Joyner appeared on the Charlie Rose show, and she announced her comeback to competitive athletics, only this time to concentrate on the 400-metre run. Her reason was that she had already set world marks in both the 100-metre and 200-metre events, with the 400 world record being her goal. Griffith-Joyner trained steadily leading up to the U.S. Olympic trials in June. However, tendonitis in her right leg ended her hopes of becoming a triple-world-record holder. Al Joyner was to also attempt a comeback, but he too was unable to compete due to an injured quadriceps muscle.
Among the things she did away from the track was to design the basketball uniforms for the Indiana Pacers NBA team in 1989.
Griffith-Joyner appeared in the soap opera, Santa Barbara in 1992, as “Terry Holloway”, a photographer similar to Annie Liebowitz.
Flo Jo at the Seoul Olympic Games in 1988.
Her daughter Mary Ruth Joyner, born in 1990, experimented with many sports as a child, but by her adolescence, she had found her passions in music and dance. In June 2012, Mary auditioned forAmerica’s Got Talent as a singer, and she moved on to the rounds in Las Vegas rounds with her dad by her side.
Death
On September 21, 1998, Griffith-Joyner died in her sleep at the age of 38. The unexpected death was investigated by the sheriff-coroner‘s office, which announced on October 22 that the cause of death was suffocation during a severe epileptic seizure. She was also found to have had a Cavernous hemangioma, a congenital brain abnormality that made Joyner subject to seizures. According to a family attorney, she had suffered a tonic–clonic seizure in 1990, and had also been treated for seizures in 1993 and 1994.
Griffith-Joyner’s supporters claimed that the autopsy cleared her of allegations that she used performance-enhancing drugs. The Orange County coroner’s office noted that the autopsy records showed that she did not die from drugs or banned substances. The coroner had requested that Griffith-Joyner’s body specifically be tested for steroids, but was informed that there was not enough urine in her bladder and that the test could not accurately be performed on other biological samples.
