I will NEVER forget that summer of 1996 in Atlanta... I could not believe what my eyes had just witnessed. This performance was LEGENDARY & what Michael did that day will forever go down as one of the Greatest of his career. It was a beautiful moment to watch it all unfold the way it did.
Indeed. I'm not a huge fan of track and field but I recall watching this race on live tv. The buzz and electricity was incredible! One of the greatest moments in sports!
As a Canadian I will never forget Donovan Bailey winning gold in the 100m sprint and Canada winning gold in the 4x100m men’s relay. Sorry but it was satisfying to beat the Americans for a change 😂❤😅
In 1996, I was a very good 200m runner at secondary school. I can't begin to tell you how much this man used to inspire me. He was just incredible to watch - never used to miss any of his races!
Why Bruce keeps being hired for athletics commenting each Olympics, it's a question that has been asked for decades now. But, he just keeps on being hired - to be fair, he's not horrible, just doesn't always have the best takes, make you wonder just how horrible and inauthentic his competition often sounds that he gets the top job all the time.
The commentators were well suited for this amazing performance. "He's home Margo. Look at this. He is streaking way. Magnificent running. Look at the time. Unbelievable! The best I've ever seen."
@@footballvidshd5421 Disagree everyone uses something. There's a difference between something legal and illegal as well as accepted in professional sport and not accepted. My point is the athletes (especially back then but also now) were pin cushions and test dummies. Everything they "achieved" should be tainted and have an asterisk in the record books. Just like all those Eastern European and Chinese swimmers, Tour de France cyclists etc. Their achievements aren't real. Don't compete in what is supposed to be a "clean" competition and be juiced to the tits.
@@amjan I don't even began to think how u came out with that conclusion?..bolt destroyedjohnson time..destroyed it...crushed it...johnson best was not even near bolts best....he was good...but NOT BOLT GOOD.
This is still one of the best performances of all times. I can't get enough of watching it- Micheal coming out of the curve and just running away from a world class field! Still and always will be amazing! xxx
Interestingly he doesn't actually accelerate especially towards the end of the last 100m. He just decelerates slower than everyone else. Very interesting pattern in all sprint races
Yes we will never forget his wonderful rolling bowling action, and then in terms of pure power we think of the great Carl Lewis, because he reminds us of the and the mighty JESSE OWENS, who was so badly needed at that time by the whole world and the free world, HITLER must've been chewing on his tashe, his Moustache, ah he was great, pity little more was made of him after that, but Avery Brundidge was a strange man
You sound like you want to lick the ground he walks on. Listen to yourself "the word legend doesn't come close". How about you start a religion and worship his statue when you get out of bed. "Legend" is a superlative term and to say that it doesn't come close is idiotic and ridiculous.
P.G. Yes, M.Johnson was one of the best. It took decades before his records were broken, and he's still involved in the track World. Just ignore the other comment on this thread. It's mean and almost vulgar.
@@Polysthenes Such a mean and practically vulgar comment. The man was merely commenting on what Michael Johnson meant to so many of us during the Atlanta Olympics. Please don't confuse that word "legend" with blindly adoring masses. Johnson meant more to so many of us because of who he was... not just his track prowess.
He was larger than life back in '96. His name, face, accomplishments, records, and those golden shoes were known by nearly every American. Certainly, hosting the Olympics helped broadcast his image across the nation. Not sure another American Olympian will reach his popularity again, with the way the world has changed so much. Young people have so many influences today.
One of the best races ever and M. Johnson is one of the greatest ever! Just Amazing!! ⚡ Much respect also for the great F. Fredericks. Greetings from Italy 🙂
Yup, you're absolutely right. Remarkable also that in those days the sprint athletes looked way more muscular than nowadays. They had the power and the speed,nowadays only the speed, pity indeed....
GREAT COMMENTS. Big respects to Frank Fredericks!! He beat a 17 year old world record in that race and lost by 36 hundredths. Michael Johnson was just in a zone. 👏
I've watched this race at least a hundred times over the years, and still marvel the turn that Michael Johnson could run. Nobody has ever done it better! Truly still fun to watch.
I remember the 96 Olympics like it was yesterday. MJ was my guy and watching him race made me fall in love with track. He was built like he was from the future. Rewatching this gave me chills but it also gave me more of an appreciation for evolution
I got enchanted with MJ at the world champs in Goeteborg in 1995, so in 1996 he already was my idol and I understood how inhuman 19.32 was. I get goose bumps to this day!
I would like it noted for the record that Frankie Fredericks ran just above what the world record had been at the start of this race: 19.68. Boldon ran 19.8. These are insanely fast times. I just don’t want us to lose sight of that. And yet MJ made them look almost pedestrian. Just inhuman speed we wouldn’t see again for another 20 years when Bolt came along. Unbelievable.
@@litonyayo1666 Bailey was great at his specialty … the 100 meters. Johnson was a two distance racers. The 150 race was not close for sure but it is not a official race .
Lately i have been finding more and more races of these two. My idol on the track and still my favorite moment and race ever! Usain is a legend but still no moment quite like this has surpassed. This was truly legendary. I hope to god that one day i will be the second man to do this.
Ish Robbins hey dude he is also my big idol n I have tatoo of his face on my hand I pray him as a godn I wish to b next USAIN BOL I had find his whole history on net I can leave my home my parents for USAIN BOLT He is a WINNER he got defects but he continue. running became LEGEND my idol UASIN BOLT
DUDE YOU ROCK!!!!!! this was my era of track n field....I made the 92 Barcelona team in the mens open 400m then I tore my posterior cruciate ligament and was unable to attend...I was devastated!!! But I trained with MIchael with 5 others from Nike Texas. Watching him HERE on TV or a video playback is fun.....when you're down on the field watching him with the naked eye, it's like someone put rockets on his feet and he was skating on ice!!! LOL But thanks for what you said...Usain is def insane...but Michael Johnson is still that legendary god
I was 17 the night he broke that record, first time I had goosebumps like that, 25yrs later still Have yet to feel those kind of goosebumps like I did that night! People can say what they want but put Bolt against Johnson in their primes I think Johnson takes it. I honestly think if he had someone side by side stride for stride he would edge anybody…. PERIOD!!!! I’d give anything to go back to that night in Atlanta….
@@stevehash158 you must mean the other way around? JADCO (the jamaican anti doping agency), has almost no funding and does not routinely test their athletes out of competition. This is a big problem and could potentially explain Bolts success, because purely from a technique perspective, he has very poor and inefficient technique according to many experts, unlike johnson, who despite his awkward upright and backward leaning technique is much more efficient and stable that Bolt
Didn't his last 15 meters or so look sloppy? He looked like he didn't drive through the finish hard. I swear I think he could have squeezed out an even faster time in this race.
Bolt's current record is 19.19, I think Johnson could have bridged toward that with a hard driving last 15 meters. Not saying he'd have matched or beat it, but would have been closer than the 19.32.
Lived in Hotlanta from 1995-1998.... Was lucky to have had the opportunity to attend most of the premier event finals at the 96 Atlanta Olympic.... as the guest of a premier USOC corporate sponsor, was fortunate to be given lodging at the downtown Atlanta Ritz Carlton hotel, in addition to given club level suite access for the men’s and women’s T&F finals, as well as the men’s dream team basketball finals, the softball and baseball finals, women’s gymnastics individual and team championships.... it was super friggen hot that summer, but nonetheless had a blast.... even had a few instance of bumping in to celebrities, as Elton John, who at the time had an apartment in the buck-head neighborhood, was at a private engagement for the guests of corporate sponsors, also ran into Eric Clapton, smack dab in the newly developed and opened Nike Town, located at the chichi Phipps Plaza Mall..... he had Grace Jones with him, this I knew as she and I and my host were all alumni of Syracuse University... it’s good to have friends in high places, especially when they originated from low places lol...(btw....I got a huge attitude from my then newlyweded wife, as I was the last minute replacement guest of my recent wedding’s best man (he was newly divorced at that time), having taken the tickets that originally his now-exwife would have otherwise used)
Best commentating ive ever heard. You cant do it any better. Not only was Johnson brilliant but this duo in the booth was "extraordinary." Cheers mates.
I remember watching this on holiday and as soon as the time flashed up on screen the commentator shouted ‘someone get down there and measure that track!’. It’s easy to forget with all the exploits of Bolt how amazing this was, I never thought I’d see this record beaten in my lifetime. Combine Bolt’s bend and Johnson’s second 100m and that’s the human limit for 200m in my opinion.
I was there with mom R.I.P., my dad, my grandmother R.I.P., my older brother; and my older sister. It was the greatest thing I’ve seen, I am truly a rich man, I’ve seen WrestleMania, I am a 4 time state champion, 3 time national champion high school baseball manager. God has truly blessed me and given me an incredible life even though I have Asperger’s which is a form of autism, and I have epilepsy, with a sleeping disorder and seizures, in my 26 years on this planet, I’ve been through a lot but I am very blessed for going to the greatest world record breaking event in human history at the time! Thank you, thank you so much!
I WAS THERE!!!! IT WAS AMAZING!!! The crowd and energy were ELECTRIC for every event. If you guys ever have the chance, go to an Olympics event. It's not like anything you see on TV. All of the athletes are waving to the crowd. Most are just glad to make the cut to go.
The 200 is easily a candidate for one of the top track races ever run. I had to watch back to grasp how this man came out of the turn like shot out of a cannon. A record that lasted 12 years - a virtual eternity in track races.
@Moneyxl00 I don't think he was. I think he's just amazing. Even Roger Black in his book said he thought it was basically impossible that MJ was doping
Being a so called athlete of my college having 55 seconds in 400m, I always used to watch his videos just for motivation... 😊😊. Back then, I always used to think his records wud never be broken..
@@immy00 No he didn’t! Are you high? Blake is a 100M specialist and not 200M at all ever no way no how. The two fastest times belong to Bolt…then Johnson the third and fourth fastest…then Pietro Mennea…then Mike Marsh, then a tie between Carl Lewis and Joe Deloach…then the great, Tommy Smith. I can go on and on and on and Johan Blake’s name is nowhere to he seen in the Track and Field Almanac of the fastest 200M times in history.
@@adambassuni6084 Well, that’s in no track history sites I’ve ever seen. However, I just looked up a video of Blake from 2011 running that 19.26 and you are right and I’m wrong. I feel a little ridiculous now. Not sure why this wasn’t in the recorded sites. Damn, his last 100 looked faster than Bolt and Johnson’s last 100M when they broke the world record. Again, I was wrong and never hear people talk about that time during meets. Inanely fast and not sure why he stopped running the 200. He’s now carrying so much muscle I do think that’s a hinderance.
I remembered the race and Michael Johnson's race and winning was the epitome of greatness and the 1996 Olympics was the best time of the 90s 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽✌👍🏃♂️🏃♂️🏃♂️🏃♂️
I dont want say that you are wrong or fellow commentators are but I recall seeing some science type programme and profile on Johnson. They likened him as to how an Ostrich or Emu would run against say another animal....................As unorthodox as it looks and goodness knows I hated his style is what was behind his amazing turn of speed.
We have seen a lot of great sprinters come and go, but I always think of Michael Johnson, Bullet Bob Hayes, Justin Gatlin and Tyson Gaye when the subject comes up. An absolute pleasure to watch! Thanks guys!!!!!
Robert FIKE Justin gatlin? His one steriod gold medal. How is that an all time great? Usain Bolt should be first on everyone's list, unless you live under a rock
Usain Bolt is the all time gr8 n Johnson himself endorse Usain. Reminder WR: 100m 9.58 Usain / 200m 19.19 Usain...ok lets look at the next best times : 100m 9.63 Usain/ 200m 19.26 Blake _ 19.30 Usain. Bolt is track legend
