Michael Johnson after setting his 43.18 World record at the 1999 World Championships in Seville (© Getty Images)
When Michael Johnson settled into his starting blocks for the men’s 400m final at the World Athletics Championships in Seville 25 years ago, there was not just the familiar glint of gold about him.
The gilt-clad running spikes in which the Dallas native claimed his famous 200m-400m double at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 had been adapted to incorporate dark blue parachute nylon.
Judging by his form in the semifinals at those 1999 World Championships, the Texan Superman was ready to fly round the Estadio Olimpico track. After three years battling injury, three weeks shy of his 32nd birthday, Johnson had clocked 43.95 while slowing to a relative jog in the last 100m.
Finally, it seemed, the world record figures for the one-lap event – the 43.29 set by his compatriot Harry ‘Butch’ Reynolds in Zurich in 1988 – were within the grasp of the US golden boy.
“I think it’s in me,” Johnson confessed after his semifinal. “I have never run that fast shutting down that far out. I know I’m in shape to run faster than 43.29. I just have to make sure I don’t make any major mistakes.”
Johnson’s personal best was 43.39, his winning time when securing the second of his three previous world 400m titles in Gothenburg in 1995.
With a pair of world 200m gold medals also in his possession, plus the 200m world record – courtesy of his scorching 19.32 in the Atlanta final – the cerebral marketing graduate could already claim to be the greatest ‘long’ sprinter of all time.
Johnson, however, wanted the 400m world record to seal the deal of his historical track legacy.
‘I was actually healthy’
Both he and his coach Clyde Hart – his guiding light from the start of his days at Baylor University in Waco – had identified the final in Seville as the ideal platform.
“From the beginning of the 1999 season, we focused on getting to that final in a position to break the world record,” Johnson reflected in the One Moment in Time series for World Athletics.
“Despite managing the injuries I’d been plagued with since 1996, at this point I was actually healthy. And 1999 was going to be the year to go for the 400m world record.
“I was going to retire after the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and I didn’t want to go into that final season with the pressure of having to win a gold medal and break a world record.”
‘The key: getting up to race pace by 60m’
Johnson was not exactly enamoured with having to negotiate four rounds of the 400m, with a rest day in between the semis and the final, but the programme afforded him the opportunity to refine his plan of attack on Reynolds’ record.
Michael Johnson leads the 400m at the 1999 World Championships in Seville (© Getty Images)
“We knew from all the analysis we had done over the years, from when I had run close to the world record, that you had to look for where you’re going to make up that extra time,” Johnson reflected.
“The world record was 43.29. My personal best was 43.39. You’ve got to make up a tenth of a second somewhere.
“We found it at the first part of the race. We knew the key to breaking the world record was getting to 60m as quickly as possible – getting up to race pace by 60m.”
By the quarter-final round, Johnson was into the groove, feeling as smooth in his distinctive upright stride as he had done in Atlanta. “The way I was able to execute the races just flowed so much more easily and naturally,” he said.
“I knew in the semi-final I could break the world record, running 43.95 slowing down. I was running at world record pace. I knew it was on.”
Johnson was drawn in lane five in the Estadio Olimpico on the evening of 26 August. Directly inside him was Alejandro Cardenas, a notoriously quick starter.
Even though the headbanded Mexican made up some of the stagger on him initially, Johnson was up into top gear swifter than usual.
Passing 100m in 11.10 and 200m in 21.22, he reached 300m in 31.66 and maintained his form majestically in the home straight, covering the final 100m in 11.52.
Johnson’s winning time was 43.18 – 0.11 inside the world record.
‘Now everything was complete’
“He has done it at least,” proclaimed the late, great track and field authority Peter Matthews in his commentary for the international television feed. “We have been looking for this time from this man for years.
The Seville crowd congratulates Michael Johnson (© Allsport)
“Here in Seville he’s won his fourth world 400m title and he has taken that 11-year-old world record. That seals his place in the history books.”
It did, indeed.
Johnson finished his career with eight gold medals from the World Championships and four from the Olympic Games – and as the first holder of the men’s world records for the 200m and 400m since Tommie Smith.
“I was pleased when I crossed the line, and also relieved,” the Texan with the Midas touch said of that night in Seville, a quarter of a century ago now.
“Coach and I both thought I could go under 43 seconds but in the end it was closer than we thought. I broke the record by just 0.11.
“But I was pleased. I always wanted the 400m world record. Now everything was complete.”
Simon Turnbull for World Athletics Heritage
