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Associated Press

For generations of sprinters in the women’s 100 metres, 10.49 seconds is the world record they have been chasing since 1988.
For Al Joyner, it is a time he sees everywhere he looks. Like the other day when he was contemplating putting a pair of his late wife Florence Griffith Joyner’s spikes up for auction and happened to glance at the clock.
It read 10:49.
“I think at those times she’s saying, ‘Hello, how are you doing? I’m still here’,” Joyner said.
The aura and records of Griffith Joyner hover over track to this day.
Known for her long and colourful nails, flashy outfits and her cool “Flo-Jo” nickname, she had a magical run in 1988 that rewrote the record book.

She set the 100 mark of 10.49 at the United States Olympic trials, and the 200 mark of 21.34 on her way to a gold medal at the Seoul Olympics.
It had seemed as if the records might never be touched. But Flo-Jo’s marks appear to be within reach with the Paris Games coming up this summer. There’s a cast of sprinters springing from the blocks who do not see an intimidating time – but, rather, a record that is meant to be broken.
“I mean, (a few) years ago, I would have said, ‘No, that’s never happening’,” American Gabby Thomas said last season of the 200 record.
“With the technology and the way our competitors are running? Absolutely. … I might just be crazy enough to believe that it is something that could happen in the next few years.”
Jamaican sprinter Shericka Jackson almost eclipsed Flo-Jo’s 200 mark at the world championships in Budapest, Hungary, last summer, finishing in a time of 21.41 seconds, the second-fastest ever.

Joyner’s take? Go for it. Because he’d like to see it.
“I remember Florence being asked about someone breaking her records and how she would feel,” said Joyner, whose wife died in her sleep in 1998 at the age of 38 as the result of an epileptic seizure.
“She said she would be sad but happy, because records are meant to be broken. But that it would be like losing a best friend.”
Of the 10 fastest times in the 200, five have been turned in by Jackson, two by Thomas and one by Elaine Thompson-Herah of Jamaica, with the other two belonging to Griffith Joyner.
At the world championships, Jackson actually wrote two times on her racing number before the event – 21.40 (she nearly predicted her time) and another that she would not reveal.

Of course, it may have had something to do with Griffith Joyner’s time.
“When I crossed the line and I saw the time, I was like, ‘I’m close. I’m close,’” Jackson said after the race.
In the 100, Thompson-Herah – who is the two-time defending Olympic champion in both sprints – got within shouting distance of Flo-Jo’s mark with a run of 10.54 seconds in 2021. She is the only one to dip into the 10.50s – or lower – aside from Griffith Joyner. That is, with what’s considered a legal wind (2.0 metres per second or less).
Thompson-Herah looked as if she might make a run at the record in Paris, but health may play a factor. She appeared to be hurt at the finish line of the USATF New York City Grand Prix meet on Sunday.
On the precipice, too, is 37-year-old Jamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, whose career best is 10.60 seconds.
Another who has potential to lower the mark is American Sha’Carri Richardson, the reigning world 100-metre champion with a larger-than-life personality who could be the world’s next great female sprint star.

Richardson ran 10.57 seconds in a meet on April 8, 2023, but the wind was over the allowed limit. Her top wind-legal time was 10.65 at worlds in August, holding off Jackson and Fraser-Pryce.
“I see a new generation of Flo-Jos,” said Joyner, the 1984 Olympic triple jump champion. “The legacy she has left, that she didn’t even know she was leaving, is her dreams have become many, many girls’ dreams.
“Because what she always hoped for would be they made bigger footsteps, because she never wanted them to be like her. She wanted them to be better than her.”
Griffith Joyner’s 100 record came on a breezy day in Indianapolis, but officials deemed it a legal wind. She eclipsed the mark of Evelyn Ashford, who ran 10.76 in 1984.
Since then, few have come close to touching Flo-Jo’s mark. For comparison, 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.

“One of Florence’s most famous slogans was believing in the impossible,” Joyner said. “You set a standard of your own, and when you set a standard and you surpass it, that’s when records fall and amazing things happen.”
There was the spectre of doping during that era in track (Griffith Joyner passed every drug test). The only individual women’s running records that have been on the books longer are the 400 metres (Marita Koch of East Germany, 1985) and the 800 (Jarmila Kratochvilova of Czechoslovakia, 1983).
What Joyner saw in Flo-Jo was a sprinter who never put boundaries on her performances.
What he sees today are sprinters who refuse to set limits.
“It’s not, ‘Oh, it is such a scary record’,” Joyner said. “Those records will get broken. I don’t know when. But they will be broken.”


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Paris Olympics: could Flo-Jo’s 100, 200 metres world records set in 1988 finally fall?

US sprinter Florence Griffith Joyner strides to a world record in a semifinal heat of the Olympic women’s 200 metres in Seoul in 1988. Photo: AP

Florence Griffith-Joyner after winning the 100 metres at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. Photo: AFP

Bob Kersee (left), Griffith Joyner’s former coach, and Al Joyner, her husband, at the announcement of her death in 1998. Photo: AP

Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson almost beat Flo-Jo’s 200 mark at the world championships last year. Photo: AP

Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson-Herah is under an injury cloud. Photo: Reuters

American Sha’Carri Richardson after winning the world 100m title in Budapest last year. Photo: Xinhua

Meet ‘fast and furious’ Sha’Carri Richardson, the would-be Tokyo Olympics sprinter hopeful suspended for cannabis use and compared to Florence ‘Flo-Jo’ Griffith Joyner

US sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson, set to miss the 100m individual event at the Tokyo Olympics after being banned for a month for cannabis use. Photo: @carririchardson_/Instagram

US sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson. Photo: @carririchardson_/Instagram

US sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson and her grandmother. Photo: @OFidhne/Twitter

US sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson with her dragon tattoo. Photo: @carririchardson_/Instagram

Wiping records ‘dishonours’ Flo-Jo – says Al Joyner, husband of late sprint champion

US sprinter Florence Griffith Joyner waves the US flag after winning the 100 metre final at the 1988 Olympic Games. Photo: AFP

Bob Kersee, left, former coach of Olympic gold medalist Florence Griffith Joyner, stands alongside Griffith Joyner's husband, Al Joyner, at the start of a news conference in which attorney Paul S. Meyer read a statement on behalf of the family in Costa Mesa, Calif., Thursday, Oct. 22, 1998. Orange County officials said that Griffith Joyner suffered an epileptic seizure that caused her to die of asphyxiation. AP Photo/Victoria Arocho)

President of the International Association of Athletics Federations, (IAAF), Sebastian Coe listens during a press conference following the conclusion of an IAAF council meeting in London on April 13, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / CHRIS J RATCLIFFE

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Elaine Thompson of Jamaica looks on in disbelief after taking the 200-metre title in Rio. Photo: EPA

epa05495034 Elaine Thompson (R) of Jamaica is congratulated by second placed Dafne Schippers of the Netherlands after winnig the women's 200m final of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games Athletics, Track and Field events at the Olympic Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 17 August 2016 EPA/FRANCK ROBICHON

epa05495021 Elaine Thompson of Jamaica wins the women's 200m final of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games Athletics, Track and Field events at the Olympic Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 17 August 2016. EPA/DIEGO AZUBEL

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(FILES) In this file picture taken on August 29, 2011, China's Liu Xiang reacts after competing in the men's 110 metres hurdles final at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships in Daegu. China's greatest track and field athlete Liu Xiang announced his retirement April 7, 2015, with the injury-plagued Athens 2004 gold medal winner saying he had "no choice" but to bring down the curtain on his trail-blazing career. AFP PHOTO / OLIVIER MORIN / FILES

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Florence Griffith Joyner, known for her nails, outfits and cool nickname, holds records the current sprint generation might finally break


Florence Griffith Joyner, known for her nails, outfits and cool nickname, holds records the current generation of sprinters might finally break.


Paris

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce

Paris Olympics: could Flo-Jo’s 100, 200 metres world records set in 1988 finally fall?

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}Florence Griffith Joyner, known for her nails, outfits and cool nickname, holds records the current sprint generation might finally break

Florence Griffith Joyner, known for her nails, outfits and cool nickname, holds records the current sprint generation might finally break