To mark 100 days from the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Nine.com.au asked you what your favourite Olympic memories were in a survey. The response was overwhelming! We chose 50 of them to re-live, one a day, before new memories are made in Paris. Scroll on for today’s memory.
Just two men in Olympic history have achieved the extraordinary feat of winning gold in the 100m, 200m, 4x100m and long jump at a single Games.
African-American Jesse Owens became the first man to do it at the Berlin Olympics of 1936. Adolf Hitler hoped the Games would fuel his white supremacy propaganda machine, but Owens led the charge as the German dictator’s hopes were banished.
In Los Angeles 48 years later, another African-American by the name of Carl Lewis matched Owens’ heroics, following in his idol’s footsteps in 1984 as the United States hosted its first Olympic Games since 1932.
Watch the video at the top of the page to see Carl Lewis win four gold medals at the Los Angeles 1984 Olympics!
Making his Olympic debut at the age of 23, Lewis won his first gold medal in a stunning 100m performance. Tall and long-limbed, he was among the slowest out of the blocks at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, but his top speed burned his rivals. With his high knee lift, rapid cadence and driving arm action — a technical combination that made for one of the most beautiful sights to have ever graced an athletics arena — he closed the gap on his rivals and rocketed ahead. Running in lane seven, he exploded down the track and stopped the clock at 9.99 seconds (+0.2 wind).
In blustery conditions two days later, Lewis tore down the long jump runway, launched into the air and produced a winning jump of 8.54 metres (-1.6 wind).
Another two days later, the Alabama-born champion took victory in the 200m. He lined up in lane seven, climbed out of the blocks, surged around the bend and, despite running against a 0.9 wind, charged to victory in 19.80 seconds.
He completed the incredible four-gold feat on the second-last day of the track and field program. Anchoring the USA’s men’s 4x100m relay team, he hurtled down the straight carrying the baton in his right hand and stopped the clock at 37.83 seconds. A relay team featuring Sam Graddy, Ron Brown, Calvin Smith and Lewis shaved 0.03 of a second off the world record.
Lewis was amazingly humble after replicating what Owens had done.
“Jesse Owens is still the same man to me he was before. He is a legend; I’m just a person,” Lewis said.
“I still feel like the same Carl Lewis I was six years ago, except I’m a little older and a lot more people come to my press conferences.”
Lewis is the only man to have won consecutive Olympic long jump gold medals, and not only did he go back-to-back, he won four in a row, triumphing in 1984, 1988, 1992 and 1996.
He retired as a nine-time Olympic gold medallist and will always be revered as one of track and field’s most legendary figures.