As I sit here watching the 2016 Olympics, a name came floating back to me out of the long-ago land of once great but-now-mostly-surpassed heroes. Watching the women sprinters this week has been a pure joy!
Tori Bowie and Allyson Felix are amazing athletes demonstrating tremendous speed and spirit. Tori finished first in the 200 meters (22.15s) and Allyson Felix has become the most decorated female track athlete of all time.
Their success should fill us with a strong sense of pride—which reminded me of another female track star who gave Americans great pride, happiness, and hope: Florence Griffith Joyner, better known as Flo Jo. Her two world records set in 1988 in the 100 meters and 200 meters still stand after all these years.
She died tragically young at the age of 38 from an epileptic seizure but for those who cheered as she flashed around the track, there will never be another like her.
Here’s my tribute to Florence Joyner-Griffith, the great Flo Jo!
Dear Flo Jo, Goodbye—I hate to say the word! To a runner like you, who ran your way into the hearts of your fellow countrymen. In your greatest races, as for Olympic Gold, you ran with a grace and elegance that was unsurpassed and brought such noble justice to the rhythmic splendor of track and field itself.
You were spirit, wind, and beauty! You were a hurricane force that was amazing to see. In your famous match-ups with the world’s fastest runners, you rose to the occasion like a true champion every time—to defend your reputation by defeating the would-be challenger, the best of the best. And yet, throughout the many great moments of your triumphant career, you presented yourself always in a simple and humble manner that also bespoke the character of a true champion.
You were no arrogant queen, imperious in tone and haughty in manner. Learning from the simple honesty of the many great Black female athletes who preceded you, you imbued the title of Fastest Woman on Earth with dignity, modesty, and humor. None could dare gainsay you—for who in the world had faster legs or a stronger heart?
It is a shock-inducing grief that overwhelms your fans like some giant tidal wave, typhoon-spawned, sending us crashing and rumbling hundreds of feet down into chaos and dark confusion, amidst the terrible and unrepenting waves.
My God! An Olympic Gold medalist to die at such a young age!! What a tragedy both for her family and the community—what does it say to us about the sanctity of life? Or the “false security” of our inner defenses built to deny one simple truth: in this crazy topsy-turvy world, despite all precaution and care, anything can happen to anyone at any time! Aye, that’s the sad truth!
If we cannot believe a Gold Medalist is healthy enough to live to the age of 40, then what says this of our knowledge of body and health, of diet and exercise, of strength and stamina? Call Flo Jo’s death an anomaly or a fluke, an aberration or a jinx, or an accident of time and space that “need not worry us”—but I tell you, this attempt to explain quickly, then move beyond, her passing is symptomatic of the era in which we find ourselves ensconced!
Our priorities of time are all mixed up; we pretend we are always moving forward to attain some bright goal, some new destination somewhere—we do not know how to stop and grieve properly.
What great grief we should all be experiencing at the news of the death of an Olympic Gold Medalist! And yet, we hardly have the time to acknowledge her death, let alone grieve, before the daily tides of our lives move us on to new places and times—who will mourn for her, really mourn, in the years to come?
She shares an honor held by the likes of Jesse Owens and Wilma Rudolph: an Olympic Gold Medal for being the fastest runner in the world. She was faster than they were, too, if you look carefully at her recorded times. Besides the Olympic Champion, she was frequently the world record holder as well. In 1988, she won three gold medals and one silver at the Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea.
She set two world records that still stand at this time: 10.49 seconds for the 100 meter dash—amazing speed!—and 21.34 seconds for the 200 meter dash—amazing speed combined with amazing endurance at twice the distance! She was an incredible gift, a flash of lightning upon the stage of track and field . . .
Her rippling arm muscles, in dizzying bursts of untamed speed, suggested the rhythmic power and rapid beat of hummingbird wings! Her torso, the power and drive of her legs, were another athletic blessing altogether—there, a roaring steam locomotive with full throttle open, firemen shoveling coal into blazing furnaces as fast as she could go, roaring and hissing, spitting and running like the black night wind, the black train faster, stronger, and more powerful than all!
Above all, she had that champion’s will to win and in full measure: the mysterious ability to reach deep inside of herself to call forth one more ounce of strength, one more miraculous burst of speed to propel herself across the finishing tape before all others! For those of us mesmerized by her athletic performance, what a privilege it was to see such grace and power, such athletic perfection and indomitable spirit: a combination only a few very special athletes ever achieve.
Gracefulness of physique and poetry of motion, colored by strength and power: timing and reflexes honed to an indivisible fraction of a second, faster than fast at the explosive start of each race . . . to watch her rippling muscles, the driving force of her exploding leg kick, the determination and tension of her facial muscles straining every nerve to their utmost to win–
This was no ordinary champion but a champion for the ages! She will be revered in Track and Field history for as long as the sport endures. Flo Jo carried with her a courageous and indomitable spirit that the rest of us can only mimic in pretentious far-off dreamlike fashion—while she was the embodiment of the real, the possible, and the fantastic.
She was the record-holder and the speed and the truth, all rolled up into one: she was Flo Jo, American Champion and African Queen. She was royalty not of ancient castles but of poetry-in-motion, encased in a heart simple and pure by birth.
Her nobility of spirit and ennobling physical perfection could not exist so close together forever—her heart has burst from the strain and she has passed away from us.
Hear my prayer, O Great Spirit of wind, speed, and heart! Let her soul roam free and wild wherever she pleases, that we may remember her always just as she was: sweet, free, and wild—our bird, our invincible hummingbird, our sweet dear Flo Jo.
Dear Flo Jo, Goodbye!
