Olympic and World sprint queen Elaine Thompson-Herah is officially the second fastest woman 100 metres runner in history, but she is campaigning - backed by the Jamaican government - for the 34-year-old record to be expunged because it was drug enhanced.
Lord Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics, insists that despite personal views on the matter, Thompson-Herah will have to beat Florence Griffith-Joyner’s time on the track.
The late Griffith-Joyner clocked a highly controversial 10.49 seconds in 1988 in Indianapolis at the US Olympics Trials. Exceptional tail wind and the fact that she was suspected of taking performance-enhancing drugs have put a huge shadow over the time ever since. In fact, it was so fast and beyond all women athletes at the time that it was dubbed ‘a man’s record’.
The mark has been shrouded in scepticism and there have been strong calls from within the track and field community for it to be scratched and replaced with the next-best clocking.
No one had come close before Thompson-Herah ran the second-fastest time in history in 10.54 seconds at the Diamond League meeting in Eugene, Oregon, last August. Hopes are from purists is that she will soon beat the record on the track.
But Coe disapproves of calls for the 29-year-old Jamaican’s time to be recognised as the world record for the event, pointing primarily to legal obstacles. The main reason is that Flo-Jo never failed a drug test and retired in 1988 following the Olympics — before mandatory drug testing was introduced. She died in her sleep as the result of an epileptic seizure in 1998, aged 38.
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