© Stade de France ®
Macary, Zublena et Regembal
Costantini - Architects
ADAGP - Paris - 2002
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COMPETITION  RETRO |
 Tokyo 1991 - ALL RISE FOR KING CARL
Paris 2003 Saint-Denis
Carl Lewis may not have repeated his triple gold medal triumphs of Helsinki and Rome at the Tokyo World Championships of 1991, but at the ripe old age of 30 still managed to bring home a gold medal and world record in the greatest 100m race ever.
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American icon Lewis already had 12 world and Olympic gold medals to his name by 1991. The 100m, long jump and 4x100m specialist had reigned supreme for nigh on a decade and had little left to prove, but Lewis was a born competitor and such was his desire to hold on to all his crowns in Tokyo that he put in three of the greatest performances of his long and distinguished career.
100m world record blown away in the heats!
Since winning the 100m at the Seoul Olympics 1988, the American had hardly troubled the timekeepers. In the intervening three-year period his fastest time had been a mere 10.05, but any doubts over his ability to turn up the turbo in Tokyo were literally blown away in the first round of the heats. The sprint legend smashed the world record with a time of 9.80, only to find he had been unfairly assisted by a following wind of 4.3 m/s. The time was scratched from the record books, but it served notice to his competitors that the man from Santa Monica TC was back. Wind or no wind, he was the man to beat, and a stunning 9.93 saw him cruise into the final.
A helpful start
Fate would pay a helping hand. Starter Hideo Ijima omitted to put on his false start headphones, and Dennis Mitchell was to profit. Lewis’ relay team-mate burst from the blocks ahead of his rivals and looked set to hold on right up until the last ten metres when a pack of runners headed by Lewis caught him.
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The fastest 100m of all time
Six runners crossed the line almost in a row but Lewis literally had a fraction of a second on the rest of them and won in a world record time of 9.86 seconds. The race immediately went down in history as the first in which six runners broke 10 seconds: Carl Lewis, Leroy Burrell (9.88), who ran a PB but lost his world best in the process, Denis Mitchell (9.91), Linford Christie (9.92 – a new European record), Frankie Fredericks (9.95 – a new African record) and Ray Stewart (9.96).
Lewis’ last 50 of 4.25 was a full tenth of a second faster than his rivals and led the American to describe his race as: “the best I have ever run, both from a technical point of view and in terms of speed. And I did it at the age of 30".
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