Week in Review: African sprint trio continue rise
Samukanga, Tebogo, and Omanyala post impressive victories in Botswana Golden Grand Prix
In a meet in which African athletes swept the men’s sprint events with top-flight performances, no individual was more impressive than Muzala Samukonga of Zambia in the Botswana Golden Grand Prix in Gaborone, Botswana last Saturday.
Although the 20-year-old quarter-miler had won the Commonwealth Games title last August when he was still 19, he entered the meet as a decided underdog to super vet Kirani James of Grenada, who had placed second in last year’s World Athletics Championships after finishing third in the Olympic Games in 2021.
James, the only man in history to have won three Olympic medals in the 400, entered the meet with a personal best of 43.74 seconds, which was nearly a second faster than Samukonga had ever run.
But it was Samukonga who charged hard out of the blocks, picked up a lot of ground on James around the second turn and then maintained most of his advantage down the home straightaway where James is often most dangerous.
Samukanga’s winning time of 43.91 — which was no doubt helped by Gaborone’s elevation of approximately 3,300 feet — crushed his previous best of 44.66, moved him to third on the all-time African performer list, and made him the 22nd man in history to have broken 44 seconds in the event.
The 30-year-old James finished second in 44.76, followed by Leungo Scotch of Botswana in 44.92.
“All I can say is thank you Heavenly Father,” Samukonga wrote in an Instagram post about the race.
Samukanga’s superb performance — which occurred after Kenyan Ferdinand Omanyala won the men’s 100 in a wind-aided 9.78 and before Botswanan track hero Letsile Tebogo took the 200 in 19.87 — came in his third 400-meter race of the season.
He had run 46.00 and 45.91 on consecutive days in a pair of races in Ndola, Zambia in late January, but those performances did not portend he would join the sub-44 club in late April.
I had written a note about Samukanga in a Week in Review post last August following his victory in the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England. But his latest exploit prompted me to conduct more thorough research about him.
The first time Samukanga was listed on the annual world lists compiled by World Athletics was in 2020 when he ran 47.16 on December 26, just two and half weeks after he had turned 18.
He ran seven 400-meter races — and five finals — in 2021, and capped the season with a personal best of 45.89 to finish fifth in the World Athletics U20 (under 20) Championships in Nairobi, Kenya.
His race load increased last year as he ran 15 400-meter races, including nine finals.
After lowering his personal best to 45.65 seconds in a race in Gaborone in March and to 45.21 in a meet in the Zambian capital of Lusaka in May, Samukanga registered his first major victory when he ran 45.31 to win the African Championships in St. Pierre, Mauritania, on June 10.
The win snapped a run of dominance by Botswanan sprinters in the men’s 400 in the continental title meet and his time was fast enough that it ended up qualifying him for the World Championships that were held in Eugene, Oregon from July 15-24.
He continued his progress in that meet.
First, he ran 45.89 to finish second in a first-round qualifying heat. Then he lowered his personal best to 45.02 to place third in one of three semifinals, but his time left him five hundredths of a second short of what Christopher Taylor of Jamaica ran to grab the last qualifying spot for the eight-runner final that was won by American Michael Norman in 44.29.
Then came the Commonwealth Games in early August in which Samukanga lowered his personal best to 44.89 in a first-round heat, finished second in a semifinal in 46.06, and clocked another personal best of 44.66 in the final to defeat World Championship bronze medalist Matthew Hudson-Smith of England (44.81) for the title.
The time also topped the national record of 44.88 set by 400-meter intermediate hurdle star Samuel Matete in 1991.
Matete is revered in Zambia as he won the 1991 World title in the intermediate hurdles, and was the silver medalist in the event in the 1993 and ’95 World Championships and in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. And though there is no guarantee Samukanga will match or top Matete’s medal haul in the years ahead, there have been numerous online comments since Saturday comparing him to the former intermediate hurdles star.
The Zambia Monitor ran a story about Samukanga being the fastest 400 sprinter in the world so far this year and wrote that “The new record has been seen as a step in the right direction, not only for the champion, but for the development of Zambian track and field resources.”
Closing strong: There was not a more popular winner in the Botswana Golden Grand Prix in Gaborone on Saturday than the home country’s Letsile Tebogo, who won the men’s 200 meters in a personal best of 19.87 seconds after finishing second in the 100 in a wind-aided 9.91.
The 19-year-old Tebogo, who set a world U20 (under 20) record of 9.91 in the 100 last year, did not get off to a great start in the 200 as he trailed Aaron Brown of Canada coming off the turn. But he drew even with Brown with about 60 meters to go and pulled away from him after that to trim nine hundredths of a second off his previous best of 19.96 that he had run in finishing second in the World U20 Championships in Cali, Colombia last year.
Brown placed second in 20.00, followed by Liberia’s Joe Fahnbulleh in 20.14.
“In the 200 my body wasn’t responding, but I’m proud of it because it shows me that I can keep pushing forward,” Tebogo was quoted as saying in a World Athletics post. “At the curve, I was neck-to-neck with Aaron Brown, but in the last 50 meters I had that one last kick and I managed to finish the race.”
Tebogo’s performance in the 200 came about an hour after the 100 in which Kenyan Ferdinand Omanyala was an easy winner with a wind-aided time of 9.78.
The 100 was the most eagerly anticipated event of the meet. But the expected close duel between Omanyala and Tebogo never materialized as the 27-year-old Kenyan was clear of Tebogo 40 meters into the race and he had opened up a lead of about a stride by the 75-meter mark.
Kenny Bednarek of the U.S., the Olympic and World Championship silver medalist in the 200, placed third in 10.02.
Big proponent: Trevor Bassitt of the U.S., who won the men’s 400-meter intermediate hurdles in 48.43 seconds in the Botswana Golden Grand Prix meet in Gabone on Saturday, raved about the atmosphere in the stadium in a post on Instagram:
“The crowd was absolutely electric, truly an honor to put on a show for those incredible fans. I couldn’t have asked for a better trip to Africa.”
Shooting star: While Africans Ferdinand Omanyala of Kenya, Letsile Tebogo of Botswana, and Muzala Samukonga of Zambia were known world-class sprinters at the start of this year, James Dadzie was not.
Yet the 21-year-old Ghanaian surpassed Tebogo as the yearly world leader in the men’s 200 meters when he clocked a national record of 19.79 seconds while posting a come-from-behind victory in the event in the Corky/Crofoot Shootout at Texas Tech University on Saturday afternoon.
That performance, which exceeded the qualifying standard of 20.16 for the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary from August 19-27, followed a runner-up finish in the 100 when the Western Texas College freshman was credited with the same 9.89 wind-aided time as first-place Issam Assinga of Montverde Academy in Florida.
“I feel very happy, though I don’t believe I actually ran that time,” Dadzie quipped when asked about his performance in the 200 during a skype interview with Ghanaian sports journalist George Addo Jr. “But I feel really great booking my spot to [the] World Championships.”
Dadzie, running in lane 8 on the nine-lane track, was in third place coming off the turn in the 200. But he sped past Courtney Lindsey of Texas Tech and prep senior Assinga in the final 20 meters of the race to move to fifth on the all-time African performer list in the 200, crush the Ghanaian record 0f 20.08 set by Joseph Paul Amoah in 2019, and annihilate his previous best of 20.24 that he had run 15 days earlier.
Lindsey finished second in a personal best of 19.94 while fellow American Assinga placed third in 19.97 to break the national prep record of 20.09 that two-time defending World champion Noah Lyles had set during his senior season at Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia in 2016.
Dadzie could not stop smiling during his interview with Addo, and for good reason. He started the season with a personal best of 21.07 in the 200, and although he had run 6.63 in the 60 to finish second in the National Junior College Athletic Association Championships on March 4 after lowering his indoor best in the 200 to 21.09 in his qualifying heat the previous day, none of those performances portended the outdoor season he has had.
He ran a then-personal best of 10.10 in the 100 in late March and equaled that time in mid-April in the same meet in which he smashed his 200 best with a 20.24 clocking while finishing a hundredth of a second behind Takudzwa Chiyangwa of New Mexico Junior College and Zimbabwe.
He then lowered his personal best to 10.07 to win the 100 in the Oliver Jackson Twilight meet at Abilene Christian University last Thursday before turning in his superb double at Texas Tech on Saturday.
While almost all of Dadzie’s top performances have come in meets that have been held at sprint-friendly elevations of approximately 1,000 to 1,100 meters (3,300 to 3,600 feet), it should be noted that Gaborone, Botswana, where Tebogo ran his 19.87 best, has an elevation of 1,010 meters (3,310 feet).
“Everything is possible,” Dadzie said when asked if he thought he could achieve the World Championship qualifying standard of 10.00 in the 100. “When we get to the track, we do what we do at practice. That is all.”
Closing in on his dad: Mykolas Alekna of UC Berkeley and Lithuania made a big jump on Saturday when he improved his personal best in the men’s discus to 71.00 meters (232 feet 11 inches) in the Golden Bears’ annual dual meet against visiting Stanford.
After throwing 63.29 (207-7) and 67.25 (220-7) in the first two rounds of what is known as The Big Meet, the Cal sophomore launched his 71.00 toss on his third effort to top his previous best of 69.81 (229-0) that he set last year. He followed his yearly world-leading — and collegiate record — throw with a foul in the fourth round and a 66.21 (217-2) effort in the fifth before passing what would have been his final attempt in the sixth round.
The World Championship silver medalist and European champion moved from 33rd to 18th on the all-time world performer list with his latest improvement. And though he avoids comparing himself to his two-time Olympic and World Championship gold medalist father, Virgilius Alekna, Mykolas has now thrown farther than his dad did until he turned 28 in 2000.
That was the year that the elder Alekna really hit his stride as a discus competitor as he won the first of two Olympic titles in Sydney, Australia and threw a personal best of 73.88 (242-5), which still ranks second on the all-time performer list behind Jurgen Schult of East Germany, who threw 74.08 (243-0) in 1986.
Impressive opener: Joe Kovacs of the U.S. got his outdoor season off to a good start in the men’s shotput on Saturday when the Olympic and World Championship silver medalist won the Outdoor Music City Challenge at Vanderbilt University with a best of 22.69 (74-5½).
The 33-year-old Kovacs unleashed his yearly world-leading put on his third attempt after a 21.58 (70-9¾) effort on his first attempt and a foul on his second. He hit 22.03 (72-3½) in the fourth round and 22.22 (72-10¾) in the fifth before a foul in the sixth.
The 22.69 effort is the farthest put Kovacs has ever had before the month of May.
Putting in the rain: Defending Olympic and World champion Ryan Crouser had an interesting start to his outdoor season in the men’s shot put in the Drake Relays on Saturday as the event was contested during a heavy rain that resulted in extremely slippery conditions in the throwing circle.
Nonetheless, Crouser managed to uncork a winning 22.38 (73-5¼) effort in the second round and a 22.08 (72-5¼) put in the fourth round before passing his final two attempts.
His meet-record effort gave him his fifth consecutive Drake Relays title and came three days after he had won an indoor competition in the Drake Fieldhouse.
Held as a way of promoting the outdoor event on Saturday, Crouser opened up with a 22.42 (73-6¾) effort that was his best put of the competition which included three other men. He also hit 22.30 (73-2) in the second round and 22.02 (72-3) in the fourth.
Summit meeting: The deepest field assembled at the Drake Relays was the women’s 100-meter hurdles in which five of the top nine-ranked performers from last year, including World champion and world-record-holder Tobi Amusan of Nigeria, met on Saturday.
The winner was 22-year-old American Tia Jones, who clocked 12.44 seconds while running in her first meet of the season after performing so well last summer after the World Championships in July.
Jones had not qualified for the U.S. team that ran in the World Championships as her fifth-place finish in the USA Track & Field Outdoor Championships left her two places shy of making that squad. But she ended up fifth in the annual rankings by Track & Field News after finishing second in both the Memorial van Damme meet in Brussels and the Weltklasse meet in Zurich in early September.
Running in the rain, Jones had a comfortable margin of victory as fellow Americans Tonea Marshall and 2019 World champion Nia Ali placed second and third in 12.61 and 12.69, respectively.
Amusan finished fourth in the same time as Ali, followed by Devynne Charlton of the Bahamas (12.71) and Danielle Williams of Jamaica (12.99).
No need to worry: With her fourth-place finish in the Drake Relays on Saturday, Tobi Amusan has been beaten in her first two 100-meter hurdles races of the season. But if last season is any indication, that should not be a cause for concern.
That’s because she lost five of her first seven races last year before winning eight of her last 10 finals. Included in that strong finish was a world-record clocking of 12.12 seconds in a semifinal of the World Championships, a wind-aided 12.06 runaway victory in the final, and times of 12.30 and 12.29 to win races in the Commonwealth Games and Weltklasse meet, respectively.
Up and hurdling: Jasmine Camacho-Quinn got her outdoor season off to an impressive start on Saturday when she ran a wind-aided 12.29 seconds to win the women’s 100-meter hurdles in the East Coast Relays at the University of North Florida.
The Olympic champion for Puerto Rico easily turned back University of Central Florida junior Rayniah Jones (12.63) in second place and Canadian Lin Yuwei (12.82) in third in a race that was aided by a breeze of 3.2 meters-per-second.
Camacho-Quinn had dominated the 100 hurdles in 2021, but she had come from behind to win the bronze medal in the World Championships last year in a race in which Tobi Amusan of Nigeria was the runaway winner and Britany Anderson of Jamaica held off Camacho-Quinn for silver.
Up and hurdling II: Ackera Nugent of the University of Arkansas edged Alia Armstrong of host LSU in a clash of NCAA hurdle champions in the LSU Invitational on Saturday.
The NCAA champion in the 60-meter hurdles indoors, Jamaican Nugent ran 12.52 seconds to win the 100 hurdles in Baton Rouge while finishing four hundredths of a second ahead of Armstrong, the defending NCAA champion in the event.
It was the first hurdle final of the outdoor season for Nugent, who had advanced to the final of Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays on April 1, but withdrew before the race in which Masai Russell of the University of Kentucky lowered the collegiate record to 12.36.
Interesting week: Tara Davis-Woodhall of the U.S. produced the longest outdoor mark in the world this year when she won the women’s long jump in the LSU Invitational on Saturday, four days after the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) issued a press release stating she had accepted a sanction for an anti-doping rule violation.
The 23-year-old Davis-Woodhall, who leaped a wind-aided 7.05 (23-1¾) in the meet at Bernie Moore Stadium, had tested positive for THC — what the USADA termed the “main psychoactive constituent of cannabis, marijuana, and hashish” — based on a urine sample that was collected at the USA Track & Field Indoor Championships in Albuquerque, New Mexico on February 17. That was the day Davis-Woodhall set what was then regarded as a personal best of 6.99 (22-11¼) in winning the women’s long jump with what was then the longest yearly indoor jump in the world at that time.
I use the term “regarded” because that result was later nullified due to Davis-Woodhall’s positive test.
According to the USADA release, “THC is classified under a special category that allows for a three-month sanction that allows for a reduced three-month sanction if the athlete establishes that their use of the substance occurred out-of-competition and was unrelated to sport performance. The sanction may be further reduced to one month if the athlete satisfactorily completes a treatment program approved by USADA.”
The sanction against Davis-Woodhall was reduced to a month after it was determined that her use of cannabis occurred outside of competition and was unrelated to her performance in the meet. The suspension began on March 21, 2023, and ended on April 20, thus allowing her to compete in the LSU Invitational.
Welcome to the sub-50 club: Gabby Thomas has turned in some noteworthy performances in the women’s 300 meters indoors. But I have to admit I was stunned when the here-to-fore 200 specialist clocked 49.68 seconds to win the 400 in the Texas Invitational on Saturday.
The Olympic 200 bronze medalist crushed her previous 400 best of 51.15 from 2021 with the second-fastest outdoor mark in the world this year while capping a double that began with a winning effort of 22.21 in the 200 on Friday.
The 26-year-old Thomas got out well for the first 200 meters of the 400 while running in lane 7. But fellow American Lynna Irby-Jackson, in lane 5, made up a lot of ground on Thomas around the second turn and had the lead entering the home straightaway. However, Thomas rallied and passed Irby-Jackson with about 50 meters to go before winning by more than seven tenths of a second.
Irby-Jackson placed second in 50.40, followed by Charokee Young of Jamaica in 50.64.
The 49.68 clocking, combined with Thomas’ best of 21.61 in the 200 from the U.S. Olympic Trials in 2021, makes her one of the fastest women’s combination 200-400 sprinters in U.S. history.
If you add Thomas’ best mark in the 200 with her top mark in the 400, you get a cumulative time of 71.29 seconds.
The Americans ahead of her are Valerie Brisco-Hooks (21.81/48.83/70.64), Sanya Richards-Ross (22.09/48.70/70.79), Allyson Felix (21.69/49.26/70.95), Chandra Cheeseborough (21.99/49.05/71.04), and Marion Jones (21.62/49.59/71.21).
In a post on Instagram, Thomas wrote: “Grateful to continue to raise the bar for myself; new PB in the 400m of 49.6 this weekend ✨ and a solid win in the 200m in 22.21🫶🏽”
Welcome to the sub-45 club: Dubem Nwachukwu of Arizona State University made a huge breakthrough in the men’s 400 meters when he ran a winning 44.91 seconds in section two of the Desert Heat Classic at the University of Arizona on Saturday.
The Sun Devil senior finished nearly a second and a half in front of runner-up Trey Jackson of BYU (46.30) in his heat while crushing his previous best of 46.10 that he had set in winning the Aztec Invitational at San Diego State University five weeks earlier.
His performance also came two weeks after sophomore teammate Justin Robinson had broken 45 seconds with a season best of 44.98 to win the Mt. San Antonio College Relays in Walnut, California.
Winning in the rain: Stanford University freshman Juliette Whittaker made a victorious return to the Penn Relays on Friday when she anchored the Cardinal to victory in the women’s distance medley relay.
Whittaker, winner of the girls’ mile last year as a senior at Mount de Sales Academy in Catonsville, Maryland, ran her 1,600-meter leg in 4:33.66 as Stanford clocked 10:50.56 while running in cold and rainy conditions.
Grad student Melissa Tanaka gave Stanford the lead with a 3:19.93 split on her opening 1,200-meter leg, and sophomore Maya Valmon followed with a 52.15 carry on her 400 leg. Freshman Rosin Willis, the NCAA indoor champion in the 800, then ran 2:04.82 on her leg over that distance to give Whittaker a comfortable lead over second-place Oklahoma State.
Although Kenyan Billah Jepkirui ran 4:32.73 on her anchor leg for Oklahoma State, it wasn’t enough to catch Whittaker as the Cowgirls finished second in 10:53.18, followed by Virginia (10:58.15), Georgetown (10:58.78), and Notre Dame (10:59.14).
Stanford’s time was the sixth fastest in collegiate history, with Oklahoma State moving to eighth.
Blanket finish: The men’s four-mile relay produced one of the most exciting races of the Penn Relays as the gap between the first- and sixth-place finishers was just over six tenths of a second on the final day of the three-day meet on Saturday.
In the end, Liam Murphy of Villanova University moved from sixth to first in the final 50 meters of the race as the Wildcats ran 16:14.03 to the 16:14.24 of runner-up Wisconsin and the 16:14.31 of third-place Washington.
With defending NCAA 1,500 champion Joe Waskom and indoor mile champion Luke Houser on its team, Washington appeared to have the talent and depth to make a run at the collegiate record of 16:03.27 set by Oregon in 2009. But the race became particularly tactical during the anchor leg as none of the top five finishing teams had a runner who ran under 4:09 on their respective carries.
Murphy ran 4:10.18 on his leg after teammates Sean Donoghue, Charlie O’Donovan, and Sean Dolan ran 4:01.24, 4:01.80, and 4:00.81, respectively, on the first three legs.
Multi-event victors: Karel Tilga of Estonia and Taliyah Brooks of the U.S. won the decathlon and heptathlon, respectively, in the GardaStars by Multistars at Desenzano del Garda, Italy that concluded on Sunday.
The 25-year-old Tilga totaled 8,482 points to finish more than 400 points ahead of second-place Fredrik Samuelson of Sweden, who had 8,070 points.
Tilga recorded personal bests of 16.19 (53-1½) in the shot put and 48.71 seconds in the 400 while totaling 4,402 points on the first day. He then added personal bests of 14.85 in the 110-meter high hurdles, 4.75 (15-7) in the pole vault, and 4:21.91 in the 1,500 on the second day while falling only two points short of his career-best total of 8,484 from 2021.
“It was my first competition of the year so I didn’t really know what to expect,” Tilga was quoted as saying in a post on the World Athletics site. “Apart from the 100 meters, the running events were generally good. The pole vault was held in hard windy conditions.”
Brooks posted a yearly world-leading score of 6,330 points in the heptathlon to top her previous best by 78 points. Jade O’Dowda of Great Britain placed second with 6,178 points, followed by Chari Hawkins of the U.S. in third with 6,036 points.
The 28-year-old Brooks had a six-point lead over second-place Hawkins after totaling 3,734 points in the first four events on Saturday. She then took control of the competition in the long jump, the first event on Sunday.
Her 6.65 (21-10) best earned her 1,056 points and gave her a 224-point lead over second-place O’Dowda, and though her 39.00 (127-11) throw in the javelin was only ninth-best in the 14-competitor field, it was a large personal best for her.
As a result, she had a lead of 192 points over second-place Hawkins going into the 800, in which she ran a personal best of 2:15.02.
“I’m happy with my performance this weekend,” she said. “Usually I [haven’t been] consistent on the second day, but here I performed better in the events where I worked harder.”
Two Liners: Mary Moraa, the bronze medalist in the women’s 800 meters in the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon last year, lowered her own national record in the 400 to 50.44 seconds when she won that event in the Botswana Golden Grand Prix in Gaborone on Saturday. Moraa was in no better than third place entering the home straightaway, but she defeated second-place Miranda Charlene Coetzee of South African by seven tenths of a second while bettering her previous national record of 50.67 from last year. . . . Kayla White won the women’s 200 meters in 22.38 in the Botswana Golden Grand Prix after pulling away from fellow American Sha’Carri Richardson in the final 50 meters of the race. Richardson, who finished second in 22.54, was competing in her first race since clocking a wind-aided 10.57 in the 100 in the Miramar Invitational in Florida on April 8. . . . Defending World champion Chase Ealey of the U.S. opened her outdoor season with a winning effort of 19.12 meters (62 feet 8¾ inches) in the women’s shot put in the Drake Relays on Saturday. She also won an indoor competition in the Drake Fieldhouse three days earlier with a put of 19.54 (64-1¼). . . . Julien Alfred of the University of Texas and St. Lucia won the women’s 100 in a season best of 10.95 seconds in the Texas Invitational on Saturday. The defending NCAA champion had run a wind-aided 10.72 in the Tom Jones Invitational at the University of Florida on April 15. . . . Roje Stona of the University of Arkansas and Jamaica set a personal best of 67.02 (219-10) in winning the men’s discus in the LSU Invitational on Saturday. The mark moved Stona into a tie for fourth on the all-time collegiate performer list and solidified his hold on fourth on the all-time Jamaican list. . . . Freshman Jaydon Hibbert of the University of Arkansas won the men’s triple jump with a leap of 17.17 (56-4) in the LSU Invitational while competing in his first outdoor meet of the year for the Razorbacks. As he did in the NCAA Indoor Championships on March 11 when he bounded a collegiate record of 17.54 (57-6½), Hibbert passed his final five jumps of the competition after hitting his mark in the first round. . . . Trey Cunningham of the U.S., silver medalist in the men’s 110-meter high hurdles in the World Championships last year, opened up his outdoor season with a victorious time of 13.45 in the East Coast Relays at the University of North Florida on Saturday. Cunningham had run a personal best of 13.00 as a senior at Florida State last year while clocking 13.10 or faster eight times. . . . Parker Valby of the University of Florida, runner-up in the women’s race of the NCAA cross country championships last November, opened her outdoor season with a winning effort of 15:32.44 in the 5,000 in the East Coast Relays on Friday. Valby also finished second in the 5,000 in the NCAA outdoor championships last June. . . . Haruka Kitaguchi of Japan posted a yearly world-leading mark of 64.50 (211-7) in the women’s javelin in the Oda Mikio Memorial meet in Hiroshima, Japan on Saturday. She was the bronze medalist in the World Championships last year. . . . Sabastian Sawe led Kenya to a sweep of the top five places in the men’s 10-kilometer road race of the Adizero Road to Records event in Herzogenaurach, Germany on Saturday. Sawe’s time of 26:49 moved him to fifth on the all-time performer list in the event.
In memory: Ralph Boston, the 1960 Olympic champion in the men’s long jump and the first man to span 27 feet in the event, passed away in Atlanta on Sunday after recently suffering a stroke. He was 83.
In addition to winning the gold medal in the 1960 Games in Rome, Boston won the silver medal in Tokyo in ’64 and the bronze medal in Mexico City in ’68. He was the No. 1-ranked long jumper in the world for an unprecedented eight consecutive years by Track & Field News from 1960-67 and set or tied the outdoor world record six times during his career.
The native of Laurel, Mississippi set his first world record in August of 1960 when he leaped 8.21 (26-11) in a pre-Olympic meet at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, California to break the previous best of 8.13 (26-8) set by Jesse Owens of the U.S. in May of 1935.
“Until then, I saw myself as just another local yokel trying to do something,” Boston said in an onstage interview when was being inducted into the inaugural class of the Collegiate Track and Field and Cross Country Hall of Fame last year. “But when that thing hit that night, the world changed. It changed my life.”
After winning the 1960 Olympic title by one centimeter over U.S. teammate Bo Roberson, Boston raised the world record twice in 1961. The first time came in the West Coast Relays in Modesto, California in May when he leaped 8.24 (27-0¼) and the second occurred in Moscow in July when he spanned 8.28 (27-1¾) to win the U.S.-USSR dual meet.
That year was a particularly memorable one for Boston as Track & Field News selected him as its men’s athlete of the year and he single-handedly led Tennessee A&I — now Tennessee State — to a runner-up finish in the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) championships by winning four individual events and tying for second in another.
While Boston is regarded as one of the greatest men’s long jumpers in history, the 180-yard low hurdles might have been his best event in high school as his 18.9-second clocking as a senior tied him for third on the 1957 national prep performer list.
Two of his four victories in the 1961 NAIA championships came in the 120-yard high hurdles and the 440 intermediates, and he was the No. 5-ranked high hurdler in the world in 1961.
Boston’s passion for track and field, comes through in this interview: