Why they rank here
Johnson ran with a bolt-upright, short-stride style that coaches said should not work and that no one could beat. In 1996 in Atlanta he became the only man to win the 200m and 400m at the same Olympics, and he did it by demolishing the 200m world record with 19.32 — a mark so far ahead of its time it stood for twelve years until Bolt. His 400m record of 43.18, set in 1999, lasted seventeen years. He won four Olympic golds and eight World Championship titles, and was never beaten in a 400m final at a global championship across a decade. Johnson turned the one-lap sprint into a discipline of controlled, even-paced power rather than lung-bursting panic, and his combination of the 200m and 400m in one body — two events with opposing demands — has no real parallel in the sport's history.
Career profile
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