This weekend sees the world’s fastest women line up to take each other on in the 100-metre sprint at the Paris Olympics.
The event has been dominated since 2008 by Jamaican runners Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Elaine Thompson-Herah, who have each won the Olympic gold twice.
But with Thompson-Herah out due to an Achilles injury and Fraser-Pryce now aged 37, this year’s favourite to win is Sha’Carri Richardson (USA), who didn’t compete in Tokyo 2020 due to testing positive for cannabis.
The 24-year-old won gold at the world championships in Budapest last year with a personal best of 10.65 seconds, and she’s clocked the fastest women’s time of 2024 so far, 10.71.
Despite currently being the fastest woman on the planet, Richardson is still some way off matching the world record of 10.49 seconds, set by fellow American Florence Griffith Joyner in 1988.
In addition to the fastest run women’s 100 metres ever, Griffith Joyner – also known as “Flo-Jo” – still holds the fastest run women’s 200 metres record, 21.34 seconds, which she set in the same year.
Griffith Joyner’s 10.49, run in the quarter-finals of the US Olympic Trials, came completely out of the blue, representing a significant increase upon her personal best (10.89, achieved just three weeks prior) as well as Evelyn Ashford’s world record of 10.76.
However, controversy surrounds her record-breaking time, as it’s likely that there was a technical malfunction with the wind gauge, which showed a wind speed of 0.0 m/s.
This reading was at odds with the high wind speeds recorded in every race before and after Griffith Joyner’s, as well as the 4.3 m/s reading – over double the accepted limit – taken from a different gauge on the nearby triple-jump runway at the same time as her sprint.
Regardless, the record was ratified by the IAAF, and it still stands to this day.
Griffith Joyner continued the two-day Olympic trials by clocking remarkable non-wind-assisted times of 10.70 in the semi-final and 10.61 in the final, both faster than any other woman had ever achieved up to that point.
She also set an American record in the 200-metre distance with a time of 21.77 seconds, 0.06 slower than Heike Drechsler’s world record.
On the back of these performances, Griffith Joyner went into the 1988 Seoul Olympics as a huge favourite.
She comfortably won 100-metre gold with a time of 10.54, falling slightly short of her record despite there being an illegal tailwind of 3.0 m/s.
She then broke the 200-metre world record twice, clocking 21.56 in the semi-final, before registering 21.34 in the final with a legal wind speed of 1.3 m/s.
Interestingly, Griffith Joyner wasn’t fully dedicated to sprinting in the years preceding her record-breaking runs.
A year after winning silver in the 200 metres at the 1984 Olympics, she began working at a bank and did hair and nail styling in her free time.
Her return to athletics came in 1987 after marrying Al Joyner, 1984’s Olympic triple jump champion.
Despite facing allegations of performance-enhancing drug use, Griffith Joyner never tested positive for any banned substances.
She attributed the change in her physique to a new training programme led by her husband, who adapted her workouts to include more lower-body strength exercises such as squats and lunges.
Griffith Joyner retired from running in 1989, just two years after returning to the sport. She planned a comeback in 1996 to compete in the 400-metre distance, but this dream was ended after she developed tendonitis in her right leg.
Griffith Joyner winning the 100-metre final at the Seoul Olympics
In 1998, Griffith Joyner sadly passed away in her sleep after suffocating during an epileptic seizure.
Her records have been considered unbreakable for over three decades, although the gap has been narrowed in recent years.
Jamaican sprinter Shericka Jackson registered the second-fastest 200-metre time ever last year, 21.41 seconds – just 0.07 off the record.
And Thompson-Herah came awfully close to Griffith Joyner’s fabled 10.49 when she clocked 10.54 in 2021.
Speaking about the records, American sprinter Gabby Thomas – favourite to win the 200 metres in Paris this weekend – told the Associated Press last year: “I mean, (a few) years ago, I would have said, ‘No, that’s never happening.’
“With the technology and the way our competitors are running? Absolutely. ... I might just be crazy enough to believe that it’s something that could happen in the next few years.”
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