and devising a plan for what I would do in each scenario.
Although we had travelled to the track from the hotel three times prior to the 400 metres final and had gotten the routine down, I wanted to get to the track early, as much to ensure that I was there in plenty of time as to get out of the room. Even though I had always hated waiting all day for a race because I was so ready to run, I usually didn’t allow myself to leave my room until it was time to go to the track. But this time heading out early gave me the illusion that I could make race time come quicker.
Finally it was time. I finished my warm-up and prepared to report to the ‘call room’, a holding room where all athletes in the race are required to report and wait together just before being taken out to the track for the start of the race. Just before walking over, Coach pulled me aside and we prayed together as we had done since I was in college. I had heard other athletes ask God to let them win, which I thought was ridiculous. Coach, however, simply asked God to keep me healthy and, if it was His will, to allow me to run at my best. ‘God blessed me with this talent,’ I thought as the prayer ended. ‘His job is done, and it’s up to me and me alone to win this race.’
Coach and I had debated about whether to go for a fast race and possibly a world record in the 400 metres final if I was winning at the halfway point, or to run conservatively since after just a day of rest I had to be ready to run the 200-metre races. The 200 metres would be the more difficult challenge, not only because the competition was tougher but also because it would come after four days of gruelling 400-metre races. ‘The decision is yours,’ Coach said before I got on the bus that would take us from the practice field to the Olympic stadium five minutes away. I ran through both options in my head and thought, ‘Stick to the plan. Don’t get distracted with the opportunity to break a world record. There will be plenty of time for that. Win an individual gold medal.’
GOLD MEDAL, GOLD SHOES
I had gotten used to the overwhelming flickers of cameras and the applause each time I walked into the stadium. The attention arose not because I had become the face of the 1996 Olympic Games or because I had announced that I would make history. The attention derived from my decision to wear bright, shiny, gold track spikes, designed for me by Nike. The shoes were unlike anything ever made for a track athlete. The technology and design that went into making these shoes and the time spent, over two years, working on them to make them perfect was incredible. The fans and the media, however, focused on the fact that they were gold and looked like nothing anyone had ever seen before. One magazine actually did an entire story just on those shoes, which could be seen from the top of the Olympic stadium. Opting for gold shoes could have been considered downright cocky, but I was confident and never doubted my ability to deliver gold medals to match my shimmering footwear.
The gold shoes project with Nike had actually started as a result of Nike sprint spikes falling behind those of companies like Mizuno in terms of quality, technology and performance. The last straw had come during the 1993 World Championships when the Nike sprint shoe of 400 metres Olympic gold medallist Quincy Watts came apart in the final 100 metres of the race. He placed fourth in the race and blamed his damaged Nike shoe, which he showed to the world on camera in his post-race interview.
At that point Nike had been making my shoes for three years. Basically they had shoes available to anyone to purchase; Nike athletes would choose from that line of shoes and Nike would make them in whatever colours an athlete wanted, adding their name or any other desired graphic on the shoe. So the customisation of the shoe was purely aesthetic. I had used the same Nike model – a very lightweight shoe with a lot of flexibility that Nike had been making since the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics – from the time I was in university. By 1990, however, Nike had stopped making this shoe and had moved on to much more rigid shoes that were designed to help the athlete’s foot strike and recover in a much more efficient way that required less effort. But these shoes were heavy and stiff. I preferred something that would work with my foot and the track.
Although they were no longer selling the shoe I liked, Nike had taken all of the plates (which are the bottom part of the shoe that actually holds the spikes) that they had left in my size and held them in order to make the shoe just for me. Then, at the beginning of 1995, they approached me about a project to highlight the fact that they had overhauled Nike sprint shoes. In our first meeting about the project, they asked me what I liked about my current shoe and why I liked those attributes. ‘What would you want in a shoe if you could have anything you wanted with no limitations?’ they asked. After I answered, they set out to deliver just that.
Throughout the two-year process the focus was on developing something that would not only be unique to me but would help me perform better by being based on my specific needs, given my body mechanics and the events that I competed in. At one 200-metre race Nike set up high-speed cameras all around the track that were focused on my feet from start to finish. The cameras allowed us to view the actions of my feet during a competition at 1,000 frames per second. This allowed us to really understand the movements of my feet and how the shoe interacted with my foot and the track. We found that the interaction was different on the bend from what it was on the straight. We found that it was different for the left foot versus the right foot. We found that it was different for the 200 metres versus the 400 metres. So we accommodated for all those particulars and developed one pair of shoes for the 200 metres and a different pair for the 400 metres. In both pairs of race shoes, the left shoe differed from the right.
Over that two-year period I would meet with a team of shoe designers about once every month. As we got closer to the 1996 season we met even more frequently. They would come to the track with huge bags of prototypes, using all different kinds of materials, for me to try during training sessions. I would give them feedback and they would make adjustments.
Once we finally settled on a material, the project became really fun. With Nike having invested so much time, money and resources to develop a one-of-a-kind, revolutionary sprint spike, it was a given that the shoe that would make its début on the most popular athlete in the sport as he attempted to make history in the Olympic Games, in front of the biggest consumer market in the world, must look cool, different and special. Nike had been known for years for its marketing mastery and branding genius, and now I got to be part of their decision-making process.
We considered a number of looks, including a clear shoe that made it look like I was wearing no shoes at all. One of the looks we narrowed down to was a reflective, mirror-like finish. Up close it was very shiny and looked really cool. We all liked it. ‘It’s so bright that it’ll stand out and be visible even to people sitting high in the stadium,’ one person said enthusiastically.
As I sat in the meeting and thought about that I asked, ‘Do you guys think it might look silver?’ After silent thought and a minimum of debate, we agreed that a shoe that looked silver would be a problem, given our objective.
‘They should be gold,’ I thought to myself. Then Tobie Hatfield, a brilliant shoe designer who was the lead on the project and who remains a very good friend of mine today, looked at me and said, ‘What do you think about gold?’
I have never been a flashy person. I never wore a lot of jewellery, only a simple gold necklace which I bought with one of my first cheques after I started my professional career. I wore that necklace as something of a good luck charm during every single race in my career and stopped wearing it after I retired. And I also wore a simple gold hoop earring when running the 200 metres and a simple diamond stud when running the 400 metres. So while I don’t think anyone would describe me as flashy, they wouldn’t characterise my dress or my image as boring or drab. They both pretty much follow my personality. I’m confident but not brash. And while I like to perform efficiently and effectively, that certainly doesn’t mean that I’m conservative, either in my running or in my style.
The Nike design team left the meeting, saying that they would return in a month or so with a gold version of the shoe. I never
