The Streak: Edwin Moses Dominates Hurdles

On June fourth, nineteen eighty seven, Edwin Moses, arguably one of the most influential hurdlers in track and field history, finally loses after winning one hundred and twenty two consecutive races spanning almost an entire decade. Here's the story behind Edwin Moses and his incredible streak in all he did for track and field Today on Daily Sports History, Before we get started today, I want to tell you about another great daily podcast called A Little Bit Day Toto, which means a little Bit of Everything, which is a daily podcast all about Latin culture. And here's a little preview. A Little Bit of Toto is a podcast about a little bit of everything for curious minds of all ages. I'm Christina and you can tune in every weekday to learn about things like Sinko, the Mayo, Chihuahuas, ad volcanoes in Latin America. Episodes are bite sized ten minutes long or less, and all He's Latin American related. Subscribe and follow a little bit at all the podcasts wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history, and today's trivia question to watch out for is what other sport did Edwin Moses competed now. Moses was born in Dayton, Ohio and was just a, for lack of better terms, a nerdy kid. He loved science. He loved making volcanoes and rockets, collecting fossils and frogs, and he excelled in math and physics. And he was just a bright kid. And it's unusual sometimes to see these bright kids go into athletics as well, but it was a way for him to put his knowledge to the test. See, he would use himself as a guinea pig sometimes and test things on himself. He loves physics and the human body anatomy, and so it really made it a great way for him to use both things. And he actually accepted an academic scholarship to Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, where he majored in physics and institutional engineering, and he was a part of the school's track team. Although Morehouse didn't even have their own track they would actually go to a high school facility and train in the city, and he was essentially kind of his own trainer. It was a very small school that didn't have a whole lot of resources for athletics, and he actually went there more for the academics, but he loved the athletics and he loved using his knowledge that he was learning in school all on the track. And what he noticed was that he had a long stride as he was standing six ' to two, which at the time was a little bit taller than the average person that was a sprinter or a hurdler. And that's what Moses really got into. He loved hurdles. He did the one hundred yard and four hundred and forty yard were his ones. He competed in most and he had a unique experience as he had a long stride of nine feet and nine inches. Now notice I said yards there, as during his career they would transition from using yards two meters and they would do the one hundred and ten meter race as ran now in their space nine point one four meters apart. But what he really excelled at was the four hundred meter, which the spacing for those hurdles are thirty five meters apart. And what Edwin noticed is he could take less steps than his competitors because of his long stride and long legs. He could take thirteen steps in between hurdles instead of the average fifteen that other competitors were taking, which would give him an advantage. And what he also did was know how many steps to take, as hurdling was still kind of in an infancy in this time where we were just kind of learning. Back in the sixties and seventies, we were getting better and better at track and field and understanding how our body works and how to get faster and faster. And one thing Moses realized was if he ran the same way every time and took the same amount of steps in between each hurdle, he wouldn't have to break stride, and because he was so long, he really wouldn't have to jump over the hurdles as much as other competitors. So he focused on maintaining the stride pattern through every race, and that's why he consistently won races, because he was consistent over and over running the same way every single time. But before March nineteen seventy six, he only ran one four hundred meters hurdle race. But once he began to focus on the event, that's when he saw the progress. And in nineteen seventy six he actually qualified for the US Olympic team in Montreal, and he actually won gold while he was there, setting the world record at forty seven point sixty three seconds, and he was actually the only American to win gold in the track and field events that year. But a year later, while in Berlin, he would actually lose and this was the fourth time he would lose a four hundred meters race, but it would be the last time for many, many years, because he would not lose another race for nine years, nine months, and nine days. Now, understand, back then, Olympic athletes, especially track and field athletes, were not haid. It was very much amateurized. They didn't get a whole lot of sponsorships or anything like that. Even sponsorships back then were frowned upon and even could get you disqualified. So he had a normal job at General Dynamics, where he used his engineering degree. In nineteen seventy nine, he actually took a leave of absence from that job to focus on running full time. He loved it that much, and over the next two years he actually used this time also to help change the eligibility rules for the Olympics, allowing athletes to actually make some kind of money and developed the Athlete's Trust Fund program, which allowed athletes to benefit from the government through privately supplied stipends, general payments, commercial endorsement moneies without jeopardizing their Olympic abilities. And he actually presented this plan to the President of the IOC, the International Olympic Committee, and it was ratified in nineteen eighty one and has become a staple of the Olympics that we now know and love today. As you see some of the Olympic programs in the US have grown exponentially since then. But unfortunately, in nineteen eighty he was all set. He made the Olympic team, but the US actually boycotted the nineteen eighty Games do to them being said in Russia and Russia invading. If you want to learn all about that, we did a previous episode on that, and there'll be a link in the show notes to go back and hear all about why we boycotted the nineteen eighty Olympics. Although this happened, the US created congressional gold medals that they gave athletes that qualified for the Olympics, a total of four hundred and sixty one, although that's little compared to the glory of actually winning the Olympic gold in real life, but he came back in nineteen eighty four for the Olympics that were held in Los Angeles, again winning gold. In nineteen eighty four, he was named by ABC's Worldwide of Sports Athlete of the Year and shared the cover of Sports Illustrated Sportsmen of the Year with American gymnast Mary lou Retton. But in three years, on June fourth, nineteen eighty seven, fellow American Danny Harris beat Moses while a track event in Madrid, ending Moses's astonishing record of one hundred and twenty two consecutive races, setting the world record more than twice, winning three World Cup titles, a World Championship gold, as well as two Olympic gold medals, which would have been three if not for the boycott, and after this loss, he would go on to do ten more races and winning all of those, including another World gold that same year, before eventually retiring after the nineteen eighty eight Summer Olympics in Seoul, Korea, where he finished third in the one hundred meters and his best time of forty seven point two seconds is still on the all time list. At number six, and that same year, after retiring, he helped institute the first amateur sports random drug tests competition. But after retiring from track and field, he wasn't done in enjoying sports. He actually joined up with the US bob sled team that he made connections with while competing in the Olympics, and he competed in nineteen ninety to nineteen ninety two. He was a part of the US bob's led team and won a bronze medal in the two man World Cup in Germany. In nineteen ninety nine, he was ranked forty seventh on ESPN's fifty Greatest Athletes. He's won the Jesse Owens Award for the best track Athlete as well as multiple other awards, and unfortunately, in twoenty seventeen, Edwin Moses suffered two traumatic brain injuries within months of each other, but he was able to recover, working his way back to walking again, and it goes to show you, whether you're nerdy or a jock, you can still have success in sports. He looked at sports in a different way and made contributions that still to this day's stand, allowing Olympic athletes to get some type of payment for the work, as well as instituting random drug testing, which has become a major part of sports with the rise of steroids. His mark is not only left by what he did on the track, but what he did off and sometimes I think we need to remember that it's just important as what we do in our careers as well as off of it. And we can support whatever we love in multiple different ways, and if you would love to support us, the best way to do that is to subscribe wherever you're listening at. That way, you don't miss any time a show comes out, which is every day Monday through Friday. And come back tomorrow for more daily sports history and the answer to today's trivia question, what other sport did Edwin Moses compete in? The answer was Bob's sledding.