100 metres, Men

By 1980 there was finally a major international championship open to all athletes, with the inaugural World Cup being held in Düsseldorf in 1977. There Steve Williams won his only major championship ever. In 1978 Scotland’s Allan Wells won the Commonwealth Games silver medal in the century, trailing the evergreen Don Quarrie of Jamaica. Cuba presented its best sprinter since Enrique Figuerola in the person of Silvio Leonard, who won the Pan-American Games gold medal in 1975 and 1979. The best American sprinters of 1980 were probably James Sanford, who ran a series of outstanding times but was often injured, and Stanley Floyd, who won the rare American triple of the NCAA/TAC/Olympic Trials. Unfortunately, neither Floyd nor Sanford could compete in Moskva because of the American-led boycott. With American sprinting strength down the 100 metres was severely devalued, as were several sprint races. In the Olympic final, Wells and Leonard both ran 10.25 but the gold medal went to Wells in a reading of the photo.