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200m&400m-History
A century of advances in training and technique
Rounding bends in the 200m and 400m events a finely calibrated science
The 200-metre sprint didn't appear in the first modern Olympics, in 1896, but it's the race with the strongest ties to the ancient Olympics. In the stadion, the oldest event of those Games, competitors ran 192 metres, the length of a stadium. The event was run in a straight line, unlike today's 200m, in which sprinters power their way through a turn at top speed.
Early days
Two hundred metres is roughly the distance of one-eighth of a mile, or one furlong, a unit of measure still used in horse racing. Similarly, the 400m caught on largely because it's close to a quarter of a mile.
The first track and field competition at Exeter College in Oxford, England in 1850 featured a race over a quarter-mile, or 402m. The distance was rounded down to 400m and became one of the original track and field events of the modern Olympics.
The early version of the 400m bore little resemblance to the orderly, but all-out exertion of today's 400m. It was not run in lanes, and it was a highly tactical race, not unlike the middle distance events, with lots of bumping and elbowing in the pack as runners jostled for position. To counter the pushing and shoving, the one-lap race became the longest track event to be run entirely in lanes in 1908.
A century of advances in training and technique have made rounding bends in the 200m and 400m a finely calibrated science, but runners at the 1896 Athens Games would have needed more than sophisticated technique to run a fast 400m.
American Thomas Burke won with a seemingly pokey time of 54.2 seconds, but the turns were so tight on the narrow Athens oval runners were forced to slow themselves to avoid falling. The 200m made its debut in 1900, just in time to add to John Walter Tewksbury's haul of medals. The American also won the 400m hurdles, earned silver medals in the 60m and 100m and squeezed in a bronze in the 200m hurdles.
The 100m-200m double
In 1904, American Archie Hahn also became the first of a number of sprinters to win both the 100m and 200m. Other sprinters who turned the 100m-200m double were:
• American Ralph Craig, who also held the world record, in 1912. He led American sweeps in both events.
• Vancouver's Percy Williams, a member of the storied Canadian track and field team of 1928 who overcame a sickly adolescence to become the fastest man in the world. Running his eighth race in just four days, Williams pulled away from the field in the final metres for a decisive victory.
• The diminutive Eddie Tolan of the US in 1932, who outran his flashier teammate, Ralph Metcalfe in both events.
• The incomparable Jesse Owens of the US at the 1936 Berlin Games. He won the 200m in grand fashion with a margin of almost four metres.
• Fanny Blankers-Koen of the Netherlands at the 1948 London Games. She had come close to dropping out of the race, feeling overwhelmed by the pressure to win another gold medal there - she won three others in London - but ended up winning the 200m by seven-tenths of a second, the largest margin of victory ever.
• Marjorie Jackson of Australia in 1952, breaking the 200-metre world record. Four years later, 18-year-old Australian Betty Cuthbert was the world record holder in the 200m, and she duplicated Jackson's double, adding a gold medal in the 4X100m relay.
• Bobby Joe Morrow, who is still considered by some to be the most stylish and technically accomplished of Olympic sprinters, in 1956.
• American legend and world record-holder Wilma Rudolph would break the Australian string with her own triple gold in 1960.
• Ukrainian Valery Borzov in 1972, one of the first great products of the Soviet Union's sports machine, which approached training the way aerospace engineers would approach fighter jet design.
• Carl Lewis of the US, who duplicated duplicated Jesse Owens' feats of 1936 in 1984 and nearly added another 100m-200m double in 1988.
• Florence Griffith-Joyner, was never seriously contested in either event in 1988, and her world records in both events still seem out of reach 16 years later.
• American Marion Jones, who won both sprints at the 2000 Sydney Games and plans to do likewise in Athens.
Chariots of Fire
Eric Liddell of the U.K. was one of the first runners to master the 200m-400m tandem, although it wasn't entirely by design. Liddell had intended to run in the 100m and 200m at the 1924 Paris Games, but the heats for the 100m were scheduled on a Sunday. A devout Christian, Liddell declined to run on the Sabbath, so he shifted his training to the 400m.
For dramatic effect, the Academy Award-winning film Chariots of Fire suggested that Liddell didn't find out about the Sunday schedule until en route to Paris. Liddell actually learned of the schedule of events a full six months before the Games, but that in no way lessens his achievement. Not only did he win a bronze in the 200m in an extremely tough field, but he also won the 400m easily in Olympic record time.
Black power, 1968
The 1968 Mexico City Games held the most famous 200m race in Olympic history. The race was already noteworthy thanks to the world record performance of American Tommie Smith, whose time of 19.83 seconds would not be broken until over a decade later by Pietro Mennea of Italy.
But when the American anthem was played at the medal ceremony, Smith and bronze-winning teammate John Carlos lowered their gaze toward their bare feet instead of the Stars and Stripes and raised clenched fists in the air in a Black Power salute.
It was a silent, powerful and unmistakable indictment of racism and black poverty in the U.S. during the height of the civil rights movement. Still, the IOC was outraged and banned Smith and Carlos from further competition, and it leaned on the U.S. Olympic Committee to kick the pair out of the Olympic Village.
Back home, Smith and Carlos were treated as thugs and ingrates by much of the mainstream media, but they had an ally in 400m specialist Lee Evans, also of the U.S. Angered by the treatment of Smith and Carlos, Evans threatened to pull out of the 400m final, but Carlos convinced him to do his talking with his feet. Evans responded with an inspired gold medal performance and a 400m record that stood for nearly 20 years.
Michael Johnson
In 1992, the 200m and 400m were won by Americans Mike Marsh and Quincy Watts respectively, but those events were more noteworthy for runners who didn't make the finals. Michael Johnson was the prohibitive favourite in the 200m, but a severe bout of food poisoning kept him from advancing past the semifinals.
Michael Johnson, though, was destined to overcome his 1992 disappointment. Johnson showed up for the 400m final at the 1996 Games wearing gold shoes, which may have seemed arrogant. But he destroyed the field, winning by nearly a second - the largest margin of victory in the 400m since 1896.
As an encore, he lowered his own world record in the 200m by .34 seconds to a jaw-dropping 19.32, prompting bronze medallist Ato Boldon of Trinidad to literally bow before him after the race. The victories put Johnson in the record books as the first man to win the 200m and 400m.
By most accounts, Johnson is the greatest sprinter of all time in events around a turn (his ill-fated 150m grudge match with Canadian 100m king Donovan Bailey notwithstanding). However, a hamstring injury prevented him from qualifying for the Sydney 200m and stopped him from making history as the first man to win the 200m-400m double twice.
A boys club until 1948
The Olympic Movement was not renowned for its progressive attitudes toward women in the first half of the century, so it wasn't until 1948 that the first women's 200m competition was held. It took until 1964 for women's 400m competition to begin. Both events followed a similar pattern: Domination by Americans with a number of successes by Australians and a surge by Eastern Europeans in the 1970s and 1980s.
In 1968, Poland's Irena Szewinska (formerly Kirzenstein) improved on her silver medal from 1964 and lowered her own world record in the 200m. The cream of a strong Polish women's sprinting team, Szewinska competed in five different Olympics and won seven medals altogether.
Swewinska won bronze in the 1972 200m, which was won by East German Renate Stecher. Swewinska later became the first woman to run the 400m in under 50 seconds, and at the 1976 Montreal Games, she lowered he own world record in winning her third Olympic gold medal.
Marita Koch
Aside from Szewinska, though, the sprints were the domain of the East Germans from 1972 to 1980. Barbel Eckert won back-to-back 200m golds in 1976 and 1980, but Marita Koch owned the 400m.
Koch held the world records in both the 200m and 400m going into the Moscow Games, but opted to focus on the 400m, which she won with ease. Koch went on to lower the 400m world record to 47.60 while losing only two 400m races in eight years.
Koch's record is one of the oldest still on the books - no one has really come close, and given her connection to the East German sport medicine system, the record will likely always be associated with a particularly doping-tainted era in track.
Brisco-Hooks and Perec
The Soviet bloc boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles Games, which meant that American Valerie Brisco-Hooks wouldn't have to worry about Koch and could concentrate on making history instead. A bit of a surprise qualifier for the Games, Brisco-Hooks became the first athlete to win both the 200m and 400m at the same Olympics.
That feat was repeated not just by Michael Johnson, but also by France's Marie-Jose Perec in 1996. The fastest woman to run the 400m since Koch, Perec defended her 400m gold in 1996 and added the 200m gold.
A showdown between Perec and Australian Cathy Freeman in the 400m was one of the most anticipated events of the 2000 Sydney Games. But it was not to be. Perec fled Australia before the race, insisting that a stalker had threatened her at her hotel.
Freeman, who received a lot of press for her aboriginal background and her outspoken activism on aboriginal issues, came from behind to win the 400m before a crowd of 110,000 inside Stadium Australia in what was arguably the single most exhilarating moment of the 2000 Olympics.
Marie-Jose Perec
A native of Guadeloupe, Marie-Jose Perec moved to Paris when she was 16 years old. Though she was a natural runner, Perec was a reluctant competitor. In fact, when her high school coach asked her to run in a meet, she hid in a closet and refused to come out. She ventured out eventually, however, and ended up running the 200 metres at the 1988 Seoul Games. She was eliminated in the heats, but persevered.
Perec won the 400m at the world championships in 1991. A year later, at the Barcelona Games, she used her long, graceful strides to win the 400m by almost two metres. At the 1996 Atlanta Games, she became the first runner ever to win the race twice. Three nights later, Pérec made history again. She defeated Jamaica's Merlene Ottey by one metre to become the second runner to win both the 200m and the 400m. Perec became one of France's most celebrated figures. The French media nicknamed her "La Gazelle," and she dabbled in runway modeling. She also came to be known as a prima donna, and went through a succession of coaches, including Francoise Peppin. "She has a big ego and thinks she is the centre of the world," Peppin said.
In the months before the 2000 Sydney Games, journalists covered the pending showdown between Perec and Cathy Freeman, the reigning world champion in the 400m, with relish.
The plot thickened when Perec fled Australia for Singapore less than 48 hours before her scheduled first heat, insisting that a stalker had threatened her and kicked in her hotel room door. Upon her arrival at the Singapore airport, Perec and her boyfriend got into an altercation with a cameraman and were detained by police for 11 hours.
Around that time, Perec posted a comment on her Web site: "The Games have hardly begun and already I wish they would end because I'm so scared - I get the impression everything is fabricated to destabilize me."
Skeptics noted that hotel security cameras didn't support Perec's story and accused her of running scared. Freeman let her legs do the talking. She won the 400m before a crowd of 110,000 inside Stadium Australia.
Canada in the 200m and 400m
Irish-born Bobby Kerr of Hamilton didn't quite win the double, but he ran into the spotlight as Canada's first great sprinting star, in 1908. He was disappointed with his bronze medal in the 100m, but he followed it up with a gold medal in the 200m.
Kerr returned to Ireland briefly to compete for his homeland in an international competition, but in 1928, he was the captain of the Canadian Olympic Team. Coincidentally, that was the year Percy Williams won Canada's only other gold medal in the 200m.
James Ball of Winnipeg was another member of the brilliant Canadian track and field team of 1928. He used a wicked finishing kick to nearly draw even with leader Ray Barbuti of the U.S. in the 400m.
But Ball made the mistake of turning his head to see how close he was to Barbuti, which allowed the American to lunge across the line ahead of him, leaving Ball with the silver. Between Ball and Williams, Canada won medals in all three sprints for the only time in 1928. Four years later, Alexander Wilson won the bronze in the 400m to go along with a silver in the 800m - the only Canadian to win medals in both events.
Canadian women have never won medals at the these distances, which may be partly because the 200m and 400m weren't open to women during the Canadian glory days of women track athletes in the 1920s and 1930s. Mind you, that was before the whole world competed in the Olympics.
Nevertheless, runners like the versatile Bobbie Rosenfeld would certainly have been top medal contenders at the 200m and 400m in those days.
Canada was not represented in either the 200m or 400m at the Athens Olympics. Tyler Christopher achieved the Olympic standard shortly after the deadline passed.
Tonique Williams- Darling won the first Olympic gold medal for the Bahamas in the women's 400m, while U.S. dominance of the men's 400m continued with Jeremy Wariner leading a U.S. sweep of the medals.
Notable Medallists
Multiple Gold
Michael Johnson, U.S. - 3 (200m and 400m)
Marie-Jose Perec, France - 3 (200m and 400m)
Valerie Brisco-Hooks - 2 (200m and 400m)
Betty Cuthbert, Australia - 2 (200m and 400m)
Barbel Wockel Eckert, East Germany - 2 (200m)
Irena Szewinska, Poland - 2 (200m and 400m)
Canadian medallists
Robert Kerr - 1 gold (200m, 1908)
Percy Williams - 1 gold (200m, 1928)
James Ball - 1 silver (400m, 1928)
Alex Wilson - 1 silver (400m, 1932)
http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/athletics...m-history.html
200m&400m-History
A century of advances in training and technique
Rounding bends in the 200m and 400m events a finely calibrated science
The 200-metre sprint didn't appear in the first modern Olympics, in 1896, but it's the race with the strongest ties to the ancient Olympics. In the stadion, the oldest event of those Games, competitors ran 192 metres, the length of a stadium. The event was run in a straight line, unlike today's 200m, in which sprinters power their way through a turn at top speed.
Early days
Two hundred metres is roughly the distance of one-eighth of a mile, or one furlong, a unit of measure still used in horse racing. Similarly, the 400m caught on largely because it's close to a quarter of a mile.
The first track and field competition at Exeter College in Oxford, England in 1850 featured a race over a quarter-mile, or 402m. The distance was rounded down to 400m and became one of the original track and field events of the modern Olympics.
The early version of the 400m bore little resemblance to the orderly, but all-out exertion of today's 400m. It was not run in lanes, and it was a highly tactical race, not unlike the middle distance events, with lots of bumping and elbowing in the pack as runners jostled for position. To counter the pushing and shoving, the one-lap race became the longest track event to be run entirely in lanes in 1908.
A century of advances in training and technique have made rounding bends in the 200m and 400m a finely calibrated science, but runners at the 1896 Athens Games would have needed more than sophisticated technique to run a fast 400m.
American Thomas Burke won with a seemingly pokey time of 54.2 seconds, but the turns were so tight on the narrow Athens oval runners were forced to slow themselves to avoid falling. The 200m made its debut in 1900, just in time to add to John Walter Tewksbury's haul of medals. The American also won the 400m hurdles, earned silver medals in the 60m and 100m and squeezed in a bronze in the 200m hurdles.
The 100m-200m double
In 1904, American Archie Hahn also became the first of a number of sprinters to win both the 100m and 200m. Other sprinters who turned the 100m-200m double were:
• American Ralph Craig, who also held the world record, in 1912. He led American sweeps in both events.
• Vancouver's Percy Williams, a member of the storied Canadian track and field team of 1928 who overcame a sickly adolescence to become the fastest man in the world. Running his eighth race in just four days, Williams pulled away from the field in the final metres for a decisive victory.
• The diminutive Eddie Tolan of the US in 1932, who outran his flashier teammate, Ralph Metcalfe in both events.
• The incomparable Jesse Owens of the US at the 1936 Berlin Games. He won the 200m in grand fashion with a margin of almost four metres.
• Fanny Blankers-Koen of the Netherlands at the 1948 London Games. She had come close to dropping out of the race, feeling overwhelmed by the pressure to win another gold medal there - she won three others in London - but ended up winning the 200m by seven-tenths of a second, the largest margin of victory ever.
• Marjorie Jackson of Australia in 1952, breaking the 200-metre world record. Four years later, 18-year-old Australian Betty Cuthbert was the world record holder in the 200m, and she duplicated Jackson's double, adding a gold medal in the 4X100m relay.
• Bobby Joe Morrow, who is still considered by some to be the most stylish and technically accomplished of Olympic sprinters, in 1956.
• American legend and world record-holder Wilma Rudolph would break the Australian string with her own triple gold in 1960.
• Ukrainian Valery Borzov in 1972, one of the first great products of the Soviet Union's sports machine, which approached training the way aerospace engineers would approach fighter jet design.
• Carl Lewis of the US, who duplicated duplicated Jesse Owens' feats of 1936 in 1984 and nearly added another 100m-200m double in 1988.
• Florence Griffith-Joyner, was never seriously contested in either event in 1988, and her world records in both events still seem out of reach 16 years later.
• American Marion Jones, who won both sprints at the 2000 Sydney Games and plans to do likewise in Athens.
Chariots of Fire
Eric Liddell of the U.K. was one of the first runners to master the 200m-400m tandem, although it wasn't entirely by design. Liddell had intended to run in the 100m and 200m at the 1924 Paris Games, but the heats for the 100m were scheduled on a Sunday. A devout Christian, Liddell declined to run on the Sabbath, so he shifted his training to the 400m.
For dramatic effect, the Academy Award-winning film Chariots of Fire suggested that Liddell didn't find out about the Sunday schedule until en route to Paris. Liddell actually learned of the schedule of events a full six months before the Games, but that in no way lessens his achievement. Not only did he win a bronze in the 200m in an extremely tough field, but he also won the 400m easily in Olympic record time.
Black power, 1968
The 1968 Mexico City Games held the most famous 200m race in Olympic history. The race was already noteworthy thanks to the world record performance of American Tommie Smith, whose time of 19.83 seconds would not be broken until over a decade later by Pietro Mennea of Italy.
But when the American anthem was played at the medal ceremony, Smith and bronze-winning teammate John Carlos lowered their gaze toward their bare feet instead of the Stars and Stripes and raised clenched fists in the air in a Black Power salute.
It was a silent, powerful and unmistakable indictment of racism and black poverty in the U.S. during the height of the civil rights movement. Still, the IOC was outraged and banned Smith and Carlos from further competition, and it leaned on the U.S. Olympic Committee to kick the pair out of the Olympic Village.
Back home, Smith and Carlos were treated as thugs and ingrates by much of the mainstream media, but they had an ally in 400m specialist Lee Evans, also of the U.S. Angered by the treatment of Smith and Carlos, Evans threatened to pull out of the 400m final, but Carlos convinced him to do his talking with his feet. Evans responded with an inspired gold medal performance and a 400m record that stood for nearly 20 years.
Michael Johnson
In 1992, the 200m and 400m were won by Americans Mike Marsh and Quincy Watts respectively, but those events were more noteworthy for runners who didn't make the finals. Michael Johnson was the prohibitive favourite in the 200m, but a severe bout of food poisoning kept him from advancing past the semifinals.
Michael Johnson, though, was destined to overcome his 1992 disappointment. Johnson showed up for the 400m final at the 1996 Games wearing gold shoes, which may have seemed arrogant. But he destroyed the field, winning by nearly a second - the largest margin of victory in the 400m since 1896.
As an encore, he lowered his own world record in the 200m by .34 seconds to a jaw-dropping 19.32, prompting bronze medallist Ato Boldon of Trinidad to literally bow before him after the race. The victories put Johnson in the record books as the first man to win the 200m and 400m.
By most accounts, Johnson is the greatest sprinter of all time in events around a turn (his ill-fated 150m grudge match with Canadian 100m king Donovan Bailey notwithstanding). However, a hamstring injury prevented him from qualifying for the Sydney 200m and stopped him from making history as the first man to win the 200m-400m double twice.
A boys club until 1948
The Olympic Movement was not renowned for its progressive attitudes toward women in the first half of the century, so it wasn't until 1948 that the first women's 200m competition was held. It took until 1964 for women's 400m competition to begin. Both events followed a similar pattern: Domination by Americans with a number of successes by Australians and a surge by Eastern Europeans in the 1970s and 1980s.
In 1968, Poland's Irena Szewinska (formerly Kirzenstein) improved on her silver medal from 1964 and lowered her own world record in the 200m. The cream of a strong Polish women's sprinting team, Szewinska competed in five different Olympics and won seven medals altogether.
Swewinska won bronze in the 1972 200m, which was won by East German Renate Stecher. Swewinska later became the first woman to run the 400m in under 50 seconds, and at the 1976 Montreal Games, she lowered he own world record in winning her third Olympic gold medal.
Marita Koch
Aside from Szewinska, though, the sprints were the domain of the East Germans from 1972 to 1980. Barbel Eckert won back-to-back 200m golds in 1976 and 1980, but Marita Koch owned the 400m.
Koch held the world records in both the 200m and 400m going into the Moscow Games, but opted to focus on the 400m, which she won with ease. Koch went on to lower the 400m world record to 47.60 while losing only two 400m races in eight years.
Koch's record is one of the oldest still on the books - no one has really come close, and given her connection to the East German sport medicine system, the record will likely always be associated with a particularly doping-tainted era in track.
Brisco-Hooks and Perec
The Soviet bloc boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles Games, which meant that American Valerie Brisco-Hooks wouldn't have to worry about Koch and could concentrate on making history instead. A bit of a surprise qualifier for the Games, Brisco-Hooks became the first athlete to win both the 200m and 400m at the same Olympics.
That feat was repeated not just by Michael Johnson, but also by France's Marie-Jose Perec in 1996. The fastest woman to run the 400m since Koch, Perec defended her 400m gold in 1996 and added the 200m gold.
A showdown between Perec and Australian Cathy Freeman in the 400m was one of the most anticipated events of the 2000 Sydney Games. But it was not to be. Perec fled Australia before the race, insisting that a stalker had threatened her at her hotel.
Freeman, who received a lot of press for her aboriginal background and her outspoken activism on aboriginal issues, came from behind to win the 400m before a crowd of 110,000 inside Stadium Australia in what was arguably the single most exhilarating moment of the 2000 Olympics.
Marie-Jose Perec
A native of Guadeloupe, Marie-Jose Perec moved to Paris when she was 16 years old. Though she was a natural runner, Perec was a reluctant competitor. In fact, when her high school coach asked her to run in a meet, she hid in a closet and refused to come out. She ventured out eventually, however, and ended up running the 200 metres at the 1988 Seoul Games. She was eliminated in the heats, but persevered.
Perec won the 400m at the world championships in 1991. A year later, at the Barcelona Games, she used her long, graceful strides to win the 400m by almost two metres. At the 1996 Atlanta Games, she became the first runner ever to win the race twice. Three nights later, Pérec made history again. She defeated Jamaica's Merlene Ottey by one metre to become the second runner to win both the 200m and the 400m. Perec became one of France's most celebrated figures. The French media nicknamed her "La Gazelle," and she dabbled in runway modeling. She also came to be known as a prima donna, and went through a succession of coaches, including Francoise Peppin. "She has a big ego and thinks she is the centre of the world," Peppin said.
In the months before the 2000 Sydney Games, journalists covered the pending showdown between Perec and Cathy Freeman, the reigning world champion in the 400m, with relish.
The plot thickened when Perec fled Australia for Singapore less than 48 hours before her scheduled first heat, insisting that a stalker had threatened her and kicked in her hotel room door. Upon her arrival at the Singapore airport, Perec and her boyfriend got into an altercation with a cameraman and were detained by police for 11 hours.
Around that time, Perec posted a comment on her Web site: "The Games have hardly begun and already I wish they would end because I'm so scared - I get the impression everything is fabricated to destabilize me."
Skeptics noted that hotel security cameras didn't support Perec's story and accused her of running scared. Freeman let her legs do the talking. She won the 400m before a crowd of 110,000 inside Stadium Australia.
Canada in the 200m and 400m
Irish-born Bobby Kerr of Hamilton didn't quite win the double, but he ran into the spotlight as Canada's first great sprinting star, in 1908. He was disappointed with his bronze medal in the 100m, but he followed it up with a gold medal in the 200m.
Kerr returned to Ireland briefly to compete for his homeland in an international competition, but in 1928, he was the captain of the Canadian Olympic Team. Coincidentally, that was the year Percy Williams won Canada's only other gold medal in the 200m.
James Ball of Winnipeg was another member of the brilliant Canadian track and field team of 1928. He used a wicked finishing kick to nearly draw even with leader Ray Barbuti of the U.S. in the 400m.
But Ball made the mistake of turning his head to see how close he was to Barbuti, which allowed the American to lunge across the line ahead of him, leaving Ball with the silver. Between Ball and Williams, Canada won medals in all three sprints for the only time in 1928. Four years later, Alexander Wilson won the bronze in the 400m to go along with a silver in the 800m - the only Canadian to win medals in both events.
Canadian women have never won medals at the these distances, which may be partly because the 200m and 400m weren't open to women during the Canadian glory days of women track athletes in the 1920s and 1930s. Mind you, that was before the whole world competed in the Olympics.
Nevertheless, runners like the versatile Bobbie Rosenfeld would certainly have been top medal contenders at the 200m and 400m in those days.
Canada was not represented in either the 200m or 400m at the Athens Olympics. Tyler Christopher achieved the Olympic standard shortly after the deadline passed.
Tonique Williams- Darling won the first Olympic gold medal for the Bahamas in the women's 400m, while U.S. dominance of the men's 400m continued with Jeremy Wariner leading a U.S. sweep of the medals.
Notable Medallists
Multiple Gold
Michael Johnson, U.S. - 3 (200m and 400m)
Marie-Jose Perec, France - 3 (200m and 400m)
Valerie Brisco-Hooks - 2 (200m and 400m)
Betty Cuthbert, Australia - 2 (200m and 400m)
Barbel Wockel Eckert, East Germany - 2 (200m)
Irena Szewinska, Poland - 2 (200m and 400m)
Canadian medallists
Robert Kerr - 1 gold (200m, 1908)
Percy Williams - 1 gold (200m, 1928)
James Ball - 1 silver (400m, 1928)
Alex Wilson - 1 silver (400m, 1932)
http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/athletics...m-history.html