Edwin Moses- A Profile In Excellence

[Orwellian_Ghost]

122 consecutive wins

Born in Dayton, Ohio, Moses accepted an academic scholarship to Morehouse College in Atlanta and majored in physics and Industrial Engineering while competing for the school track team. Morehouse did not have its own track, so he used public high school facilities around the city to train. Initially, Moses competed mostly in the 180-yard hurdles and 440-yard dash. Before March 1976, he ran only one 400-meter hurdles race, but once he began focusing on the event he made remarkable progress. His trademark technique was to take 13 steps between all the hurdles (or even 12 between some hurdles), pulling away in the second half of the race as his rivals changed stride pattern. That summer, he qualified for the US team for the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. Though it was his first international meet, Moses won the gold medal and set a world record of 47.64 seconds.

After breaking his own world record the following year, Moses lost to Germany's Harald Schmid on 26 August 1977 in Berlin, his fourth defeat in the 400-meter hurdles. Beginning the next week, when he beat Schmid by 15 meters in Düsseldorf, Moses did not lose another race for nine years, nine months and nine days.
By the time American Danny Harris beat Moses in Madrid on June 4, 1987, Moses had won 122 consecutive races, set the world record two more times, won three World Cup titles, won two World Championships, and earned his second Olympic gold medal in Los Angeles, where he was selected to take the Olympic Oath. After losing to Harris, he won 10 more races in a row, then finished third in the final 400-meter race of his career at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Moses



Moses also made winning look so easy. "It just happens that my slow is faster than most athletes' fast," he said. "People either think that I'm a freak or that the other guys aren't any good."

Or, as pointed out by Leroy Walker, the U.S. Olympic track and field coach in 1976: "In an art gallery, do we stand around talking about Van Gogh? Extraordinary talent is obvious. We're in the rarefied presence of an immortal here. Edwin's a crowd unto himself."

http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016350.html


See him run:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpP1-jSkqf4&feature=related