Allen Johnson - 12.96 at the 2006 World Cup in Athens (© Getty Images)
At 39 years of age Mister AJ, also known as Allen Johnson the seven-time World champion and arguably one of the greatest high hurdlers of the last decade and a half, has decided time has come to hang up his spikes.
To sum up his athletics career in a few paragraphs is no easy task. Johnson was much more than a champion, he was a role model, a friend, an inspiration to fellow athletes and all those who like him love the sport of track and field.
Figures are impressive. Johnson won four World outdoor titles at 110m Hurdles from 1995 to 2003 with pundits believing he would also have taken the 1999 World gold had he not been forced out injured. Indoors, he was equally impressive with global gold medals grabbed in 1995, 2003 and 2004.
Johnson was one of the most memorable figures of the 1996 Olympic Games which were marked by Michael Johnson’s 19.32 200m World record. He delighted the home crowd not only with a superb victory in a then Olympic record 12.95 but with his unforgettable lap of honour on which he also embarked his then 2-year-old daughter Tristine holding an American flag; images which made headlines in most American newspapers the following day.
One has to look beyond statistics to understand the aura that Johnson had over a 110m Hurdles race but numbers do speak for themselves.
Johnson is the most consistent high hurdler of all time with 11 legal races timed under 13 seconds. To put this into perspective the second most proficient athlete is World record holder Dayron Robles of Cuba back with eight races under 13 seconds and then Colin Jackson (GBR), Liu Xiang (CHN) and David Oliver* (USA) with five performances each.
Arch rival Colin Jackson said of Johnson: He is "one of the greatest champions over the last 15 years, and the 110 hurdles will surely miss Allen. He is one of my toughest competitors ever, but off the track he was one of the nicest."
Johnson’s presence at the very top of the 110m Hurdles spanned three generations; he took over the mantle from former World record holder Jackson, dominated the front scene while the likes of Mark Crear, Anier Garcia and Terrence Trammell were playing catch up and then was part of the emergence of the latest generation of hurdlers that of World champions Ladji Doucouré, Liu Xiang and most recently Robles and Oliver.
He equalled the then American record of 12.92 on two occasions missing out of Jackson’s World record of 12.91 by the smallest of margins in 1996. That one hundredth of a second has kept him away from the one achievement missing from his impressive resume, the establishment of a World record.
His most recent highlight was a superb 12.96 victory at the 2006 Athens World Cup where returning-from-injury he wasn’t even supposed to be running.
“The reason why I was there is that my training partner Lashinda Demus and our coach were there," Johnson explained after his race. "I was just here training, then Ryan (Wilson) pulled out. The U.S. officials said, ‘Hey Allen, since you are here, will you run?’ I said, ‘sure’. “I knew that if I ran my race I could win. I wanted to prove the old guy (35) is still there."
And the old guy was still there two years later when aged 37 he grabbed the last global medal of his superb career finishing runner up to 24-year-old Liu Xiang at the 2008 World Indoor Championships in Valencia.
Johnson proved throughout his career that he is a man whose excellence and devotion to athletics has always benefitted the team.
Few people would remember that Johnson won not one but two gold medals at the 1997 Athens World Championships. Not only did he demolish the rest of the field in his specialty event, clocking his second fastest time ever at 12.93 leaving then-World record holder Jackson 12 hundredths of a second behind but he stepped up, asked by his team leaders, and ran a leg of the 4x400m relay heats in order to allow his one-lap specialists team-mates to have an extra rest day.
For the first time in 15 years did we see Johnson look tired at the end of a race!
Speaking from home Johnson said: “There are a lot of people that helped me in my career. I would give special thanks to Bob Digby, Charles Foster and Sylvanues Hepburn, each helped me at different points in my career especially when the road was the toughest.
?“My best memory of my career? Very hard for me to pick one thing. My best memory is my first outdoor World Championship title in Gothenburg, Sweden. I learned how to be a champion.
“The thing I enjoyed the most are the friends I met and places I got to see. I love hurdling and will really miss being on the track!!!”
And so will we!
Laura Arcoleo for the IAAF
* After his performance at the Paris Diamond League, Oliver has now 6 races under 13 seconds to his credit.