World's Fastest Man Trivia Quiz

The 1920 Olympics had 29 nations participate, a significant growth from the first competitions especially after the devastations of WWI and the ban for the Central Powers nations. Charlie Paddock (1900-1943) was born in Texas and grew up in Pasadena California.

In the Antwerp Games of 1920 he won the gold medal in the 100 meter (the sixth consecutive Olympic championship in this event by Americans) and the 4x100 meter relay. He also won a silver medal for the 200 meter race, a feat he matched in the 1924 Olympics.

He died in a military plane crash in Alaska in 1943.

The movie "Chariots of Fire" captured the drama and heartbreak of 100m race at the 1924 Paris Olympics. Eric Liddell, the British 100 meter record holder and a very devout Christian, refused to run in a qualifying heat for that race, since it was held on a Sunday. His teammate Harold Abrahams won the race, defeating the previous Olympic champion Charlie Paddock. In the 200m race Abrahams finished third and Liddell finished sixth. For Liddell an unexpected happy ending occurred when he won the gold medal in the 400m run. Liddell served as a missionary in China and died as a prisoner of the Japanese.

Harold Abrahams (1899-1978) graduated from Cambridge and trained as lawyer. After athletic competition he was an athletics journalist, BBC commentator, and president of the Jewish Athletics Association and chairman of the Amateur Athletics Association. Every year after his victory he dined with the third place finisher in his gold medal race, Arthur Porritt, on the same date and time of the race.

Jesse Owens (1913-1980) remains one of the most famous track athletes in history for his achievements at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. He won the 100m in 10.3 seconds, defeating Ralph Metcalfe who later became an influential Chicago politician and Congressman. He then won the long jump with a distance of 26 feet 5 inches (8.05m). His third individual victory occurred in the 200m race, defeating Mack Robinson who was the older brother of Jackie Robinson. His final medal came in the 4x100m relay after he was added to the team when the US buckled under German pressure and removed the two Jewish racers (Owens protested this action).

Owens was the grandson of a slave and son of a sharecropper. His family moved from Alabama to Cleveland as part of what has been called the "Great Migration" of African Americans to northern states for better opportunities. Owens attended Ohio State University and famously established six world records in one day at the Big Ten Conference Championships in May 1935. Unfortunately the racial climate in the US limited his financial opportunities after the Olympics, and Owens had many struggles later in life.

Bobby Morrow (1935-2020) won golds medals at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics in the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m relay. The American team swept the 200m race, with Morrow equalling the world record. He anchored the 4x100m relay team, which also set a world record.

He retired in 1958 to begin a career in banking. He attempted a comeback in 1960, but failed to qualify for the American Olympic team.

The German sprinter Armin Hary (1937- ) won the 100m race at the 1960 Rome Olympics. He also won a gold medal in the 4x100m relay race after the American team was disqualified for an illegal baton pass. He was the first man to record a time of 10.0 seconds for the 100m race.

His victory was somewhat controversial due to his extraordinary fast start. However, later high speed photography of his starts confirmed his exceptional reaction time of .04 seconds versus the typical sprinter's time of .132 seconds.

He had to retire from competition due to injuries from a car accident.

Bob Hayes (1942-2002) won the 100m at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics in a dominant performance, winning on a badly deteriorated lane with borrowed spikes. He later anchored the American 4x100m relay team to a come-from-behind victory with estimates for the time for his leg of between 8.5 and 8.8 seconds.

He retired from track and field after the 1964 Olympics and turned his talents to American football, playing primarily for the Dallas Cowboys. He was later elected to the National Football League Hall of Fame.

Jimmy Hines (1946-2023) was the first man to record an official time for the 100m run under 10 seconds, when he triumphed at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics with a world-record time of 9.95 seconds. This time was the world record for 15 years until Calvin Smith ran a time of 9.93 seconds in 1983. Hines was also part of the gold medal team in the 4x100m relay race at that Olympics. Hines had a brief, relatively unsuccessful, career in the National Football League.

Valeriy Borzov (1949 - ) won the gold medal in the 100m and 200m races at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. He also won a silver medal as part of the USSR team in the 4x100m relay. At the 1976 Olympics he won bronze medals in the 100m race and the 4x100m relay. After retirement from athletics, he was active in politics of his home nation of Ukraine.

Allan Wells (1952- ) became the Olympic 100m champion at the 1980 Moscow Games. He defeated the Cuban sprinter Silvio Leonard in an extremely close photo finish with a time of 10.25 seconds. Later he won a silver medal in the 200m race. Many people devalued Wells' victories, because the 1980 Olympics were boycotted by a number of major nations. However, in an event shortly after the completion of the Olympics he defeated the outstanding sprinters from nations which had boycotted the competition.

Wells was originally a long jumper and began his sprint career relatively late. In fact, he was the oldest man to win the 100m Olympic event. In the early part of his career he didn't use starting block until he was forced to use them in the Olympics due to the use of electronics to detect false starts.

Carl Lewis won a total of nine gold medals over the course of four Olympic Games. He qualified for the 1980 Moscow Olympics in the long jump and 4x100 meter relay, but he was unable to compete due to the boycott by the USA. At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics he won the 100m, 200m, 4x100mrelay, and long jump events.

At the 1988 Seoul Olympics he repeated his victory in the long jump and was awarded the gold medal in the 100m race after Ben Johnson (Canada) was disqualified for failing a drug test.

At the 1992 Barcelona games he failed to qualify for US team in the 100m event, but won gold medals in the long jump and the 4x100m relay. At the 1996 Atlanta Games Lewis won his fourth consecutive gold medal in the long jump.

Linford Christie was born in Jamaica in 1960 and moved to England at age 7. He was the first British man to have won a gold medal in the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, World Championships, and European Championship. His career, however, developed quite slowly; and he failed to make the British Olympic team in 1984 at the age of 24.

But by 1988 he was awarded the silver medal in the Seoul Olympic games, finishing behind the disqualified Ben Johnson (for a failed drug test) and Carl Lewis. At the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games Christie won the 100m race in a time of 9.96 seconds, becoming the third British 100m champion and the oldest winner of the event by four years.

Maurice Greene, an American sprinter born in 1974, was a former holder of the world record in the 100m sprint with a time of 9.76 seconds. At the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games he won gold medals in the 100m sprint and the 4x100m relay race. In the next Olympic Games at Athens he won a silver medal in the relay and a bronze in the individual 100 meter race. He also has run the 100 meter race with a time under 10.0 seconds a total of 52 times, the same number that Usain Bolt achieved. Greene's career was limited due to a number of nagging injuries.

Usain Bolt was the most dominant sprint of his generation, winning three gold medals in the 100m sprint and 200m sprint, and two gold medals in the 4x100m relay. He set world records in the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m relay race.

Coaches originally trained him for the longer 200m and 400m races due to his height of 6ft 5in (1.95m). He made the Jamaican Olympic team for the 2004 Athens Olympic games at age 18, but was eliminated in the first round of the 200m race after suffering a leg injury. At the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games Bolt ran a startling time of 9.69 seconds for the 100m coasting at the finish line since he was about 2 meters in the lead. Analysts claimed that he could have finished with a time of about 9.55 seconds if he had not slowed down at the end. He repeated his 100m success at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games.

The retirement of Usain Bolt created a new opportunity for other sprinters. Marcell Jacobs, an Italian sprinter, was relatively unknown when he won the 100m sprint and was a member of the winning 4x100mr relay team at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Jacobs, the son of an Italian mother and an American serviceman, was born in the USA and moved back to Italy after he parents separated.

After his Olympic gold medal, he won the European Championships in 2022 and 2024 (100m then 100m plus 4x100m relay).

Noah Lyles, an American sprinter, won the gold medal in the 100m race at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games and bronze medals in the 200m race at both the 2020 Tokyo and 2024 Paris Olympics. His victory in the Olympics 100m race was one of the closest contests ever, defeating Kishane Thompson of Jamaica by .005 seconds, or about 2 inches by my calculation.

He has won gold medals in three World Championship events - 100m, 200m, and the 4x100m relay.