Greene won the second semi-final equalling the brand new world record before both clocked identical, wind-aided 10 secs in the final to end an evening of sensational sprinting - all in the space of about two-and-a-half hours. Having won the first qualifying heat at a wind-aided 9.8 secs, he won the first of two semi-finals clocking 9.9 secs (all hand-timed), achieving the first ever legal sub-10 100m. Hines and Greene were central figures in a sensational day of sprinting at the 1968 Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) national championships, since remembered as “The Night of Speed”. In 1967, Hines was ranked No.1 in the 100 yards/100m after he had equalled the world record of 9.1 seconds for the 100 yards and 10.0 seconds for 100m. Joining the Texas Southern University on an athletics scholarship, his rapid progress came under coach Bobby Joe Marrow, the 1956 Melbourne Olympics 100m and 200m champion.įor three years from 1965, it was his great rivalry with friend Charlie Greene that dominated the sprint scene in the US.

His impressive speed as a center fielder in the school baseball team caught the eye of a track coach. The sprint legend and Olympic 100m champion, who wrote a significant chapter in the history of track & field as the first man to run the 100 metres under 10 seconds, died on Saturday at the age of 76, World Athletics said on its website.īorn in Arkansas as the ninth of 12 children, the family – his father was a construction worker and his mother worked in a cannery – moved to California when he was six years old. Jim Hines in the 1968 Mexico Olympic Games.

New DelhiJim Hines blazed a trail in world athletics, but if what he achieved in the summer of 1968 is not as widely celebrated as it should be it is because the tumultuous 1968 Mexico Olympics are best remembered for the defiance of black US athletes to protest racism in their country.

League of lust chapter 19