Edwin Moses

Edwin Moses (born 1955) is known as the greatest 400-meter hurdler ever. Over almost a decade, from September 1977 to June 1987, Moses won 107 consecutive races, including one at the 1984 Olympic Games, and broke the world record for the event four times.

Edwin Moses was born in Dayton, Ohio on August 31, 1955. Both of his parents were educators, and Moses grew up with a strong interest in academics. He spent his time building model volcanoes, dissecting frogs, collecting fossils, and launching homemade rockets. His parents, who were both active on the school board, encouraged his academic interests and expected him to do well. He told a reporter for the Associated Press, "It was mandatory for us to join a book club and read five to ten books during the summer and go to summer schools. It was a matter of keeping us involved in activities that kept us stimulated." Ironically, Moses bought his first pair of running shoes in Paris during a trip he took there with the high school French club.

In high school, according to Larry Schwartz in ESPN.com, Moses said, "I had no ambitions to be an Olympic track star or any kind of athlete." He joined the basketball team and the football team, but the coach cut him from the basketball team and he was removed from the football team for fighting. He moved to track and gymnastics, and found that the solitary nature of these sports suited his personality. "I found that I enjoyed individual sports much more," he said, according to Schwartz. "Everything is cut and dry, nothing is arbitrary. It's just a matter of getting to the finish line first." Moses first read about hurdling in a Boy Scout track and field manual that showed him the technique.

Despite his new interest in track and field, Moses never qualified for the Ohio High School State Track and Field Championships, and was not considered skilled enough to receive an athletic scholarship to college. Instead, he accepted an academic scholarship to Morehouse College in Atlanta. He majored in physics and engineering. The school had a track team, but didn't have a track to practice on. Moses was known as "Bionic Man" at the college, where he was largely in charge of his own training. He applied his scientific interests to his running, analyzing his performance and training, and working fiercely to improve. Moses ran in the 110-meter hurdles, 400-meters and 4 x 100-meter relays. He entered a 400-meter hurdle race only once before 1976. When he began running this event, he improved dramatically.

Stunned the World

Four months after running the event for the first time, Moses competed in the Montreal Olympic Games of 1976. This unknown athlete from a black college stunned the world, winning the gold medal by eight meters, the largest winning margin ever in the Olympic event, and setting a world record of 47.64 seconds. According to Schwartz, the silver-medal winner, Mike Shine, later said of the huge winning margin, "Edwin and I were ships passing in the night." Shine also said, "The last 60 or 70 meters, I couldn't believe him. I didn't think anyone could pull away that fast." Moses said, "I pushed hard on the last five hurdles. Anyone can run the first five, but what decides who wins a race is the last five. I'd planned to run a 47.5 today. I guess 47.6 isn't too bad."

Moses had an unusual combination of speed, grace, and stamina, and was known for his long and efficient 9-foot, 9-inch stride: instead of taking fourteen steps between each of the 10 three-foot hurdles, as every other runner did, he only took 13. According to Schwartz, Moses said, "It just happens that my slow is faster than most athletes' fast. People either think that I'm a freak or that the other guys aren't any good." Before Moses perfected his 13-step technique, others told him that he couldn't do it - that no one could do it. Moses worked on his technique in secret, never letting anyone else watch him work out. Once he told someone that his track affiliation was the Utopian Track Club, which had one member - Moses.

More serious and studious than other athletes, in the early years of his career Moses was somewhat of an enigma to track fans. They saw him as what Schwartz described as "a hurdling automaton. Not until years later would he be viewed as a respected statesman." Moses took track and life seriously. His major regret about the Olympic experience was that training had interfered with his study time, so that his grade point average fell to 3.57. He was not always serious, however; his human side showed several times. During the Montreal Olympics he knocked over two hurdles during his victory lap (later, according to Schwartz, he joked, "I'm glad I didn't do that during the race"). At the 1983 World Championships in Helsinki he ran with an untied shoe. At the Los Angeles Olympics he temporarily forgot the words to the athletes' oath. Perhaps his hesitation was because this was an emotional moment for him - he dedicated his win in the 400-meter hurdles to his father, who had died a year before.

Began Long Winning Streak

In 1977, Moses broke his own world record at the AAU's Pepsi Invitational meet. In that same year, on August 26th, he lost the 400-meter hurdle race to Harald Schmid. It was only the fourth time that he had lost the event, and it would be the last time he lost for almost a decade. The next week, he raced against Schmid again, and won by 15 meters.

In 1978, he received his Bachelor of Science degree from Morehouse. After graduating, he left Atlanta because there were no good training facilities for his event there, and moved to California. In 1980, he was scheduled to compete in the Olympics. Because of tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, President Jimmy Carter ordered the U.S. athletes to boycott the event, which was held in Moscow. The boycott angered Moses, who believed the athletes were being used as pawns in a political game. Instead, he ran at an international meet in Milan, Italy and again broke his own world record with a time of 47.13.

Outspoken Views

In 1980, Moses openly questioned the then-current rule that amateur athletes could not accept money for competing and endorsing products. He believed that many amateur athletes did accept money, but did it dishonestly. Moses felt it would be better if the process were simply made legal and honest. Other athletes agreed with Moses. He aroused controversy, however, when he spoke out against the use of steroids, which some athletes used to improve their performance, but which were harmful to their health. Records by drug-using athletes became suspect and cheapened the records of those who did not use steroids. According to Schwartz, he said, "Someone had to say something. What are these people doing to their bodies? Is winning worth that much? I don't think so." Some athletes used other illicit performance-enhancing techniques that might not be apparent if they were tested only during competition. Moses and others called for the testing of athletes during the off-season, when they were not actively competing but when some were using performance-enhancing drugs.

In 1982, Moses sat out the season because of injury and illness. That same year, he married Myrella Bordt, a West German woman who designed movie sets and costumes. The marriage was not successful and they divorced in 1991.

A Prophetic Dream

In 1983, Moses dreamed that he saw the numbers "8-31-83" and then, repeatedly, "47.03." This was a tenth of a second faster than his last world record. Soon after, at a meet in Germany, he ran on his 28th birthday - August 31, 1983 - and set another world record with a time that was a hundredth of a second faster than his dream: 47.02.

In the 1984 Olympics, Moses won another gold medal, becoming the second man to win two 400-meter Olympic hurdle events. He had been hired by the Kappa sportswear company in Italy to endorse their clothing, and they considered this win so important to their image that they had taken out $1 million in insurance in case he was injured and couldn't run. Fortunately, he did win. That same year, he was named Sportsman of the Year by the U.S. Olympic Committee and Sports Illustrated.

Three years later, on June 4, 1987, Danny Harris broke Moses' long winning streak - beating him by 11 seconds. Moses went on to win ten events in a row, beating Harris in Rome at the 1987 World Championships. At the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Moses ran his fastest Olympic final ever with a time of 47.56, but came in third. His teammate, Andre Phillips, came in first. Phillips had looked up to Moses since high school, and had lost to him more than 20 times, including during the Olympic trials.

Retired from Competition

When Moses retired from competition, he did not miss training. In 1986, he had ruptured a disc in his back. The injury was not properly diagnosed or treated, so he spent the last three years of his track career in severe pain. It was not until 1993 that the injury was correctly diagnosed.

Moses moved back to Atlanta in 1994, after receiving his master's degree in business administration from Pepperdine University. Although he had retired from competition, he was still active in sports, working as the athletes' liaison to the International Olympic Committee. He was also elected president of the International Amateur Athletic Association. Moses testified before Congress on sports issues, and was a member of the President's Commission on White House Fellowships and the National Criminal Justice Commission. As liaison to the International Olympic Committee, he was able to get the marathon schedule changed so that the grueling event would be run in the morning, when it was still cool, rather than in the sweltering afternoon. As president of the International Amateur Athletic Association, he told an Associated Press writer, he hopes to encourage education. "Education has been the key to my whole life," he said. "If I had not gotten a scholarship and gone to Morehouse, I wouldn't be here today. No one would know who I was." He is concerned about young people who grow up in broken homes and are exposed to drugs, violence, and poverty, and deplores advertising campaigns that lead young people to care more about wearing expensive jackets and shoes rather than getting a good education. He told an Associated Press reporter that "It's unlikely that any of them are going to be superstars in sports compared to the chances of getting an education and being a successful person in almost any career, whether it be chemistry, physics or whatever." Moses now works as a financial consultant for the Robinson-Humphrey investment firm in Atlanta.

Of his unprecedented winning streak, Tom Weir wrote in USA Today, Moses said, "I'm hoping that the streak will stand for a long time - that it will be my mark on the sport, my legacy." And according to Schwartz, he said that he hoped to be remembered "as the guy nobody could beat. Maybe in the years to come, people will understand the things I have accomplished and realize, 'Hey, this guy was really something. Nobody's ever going to do that again."'

Further Reading

"Edwin Moses," Ohio's Greatest Runners,http://www.nd.edu?~pworland/ogr/moses.htm (November 9, 1999).

"Edwin Moses Feels at Home Being from Somewhere Else," www.canoe.com,http://www.canoe.com/OlympicsJune/jun27_moses.html (November 9, 1999).

"Gone with the Wind," Espn.com,http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016369.html (November 9, 1999).

"Great Moments in Olympic History No. 13: Edwin Moses-Unbeaten Streak Lasted Nearly a Decade," USA Today,http://cgi.usatoday.com/olympics/odxu13.htm (November 9, 1999).

"Moses Made Winning Look Easy," ESPN.com,http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016350.html (November 9, 1999).

"The Olympic Hall of Fame: Edwin Moses," www.olympicusa.org,http://www.olympic-usa.org/games/ga_2_5_63.html (November 9, 1999).

track and field athlete

Personal Information

Born August 31, 1955, in Dayton, OH; son of Irving (an educator) and Gladys (an educator) Moses; married Myrella Bordt (an artist), 1982.
Education: Morehouse University, B.S., 1976; has also earned a B.A. in business and an M.B.A.
Memberships: United States Olympic Committee's substance abuse committee, 1989--.

Career

Track-and-field athlete, 1976-92, speciality the 400-meter intermediate hurdles; U.S. Olympic Track Team, member, 1976, 1984; won gold medals on both occasions; world championship winner, 1977, 1987; holder of world record in 400 meter hurdles, 1983--. Bobsledder, 1989-91.

Life's Work

Edwin Moses's athletic achievement is extraordinary by any standards. For nearly a decade between 1977 and 1987 he completely dominated the 400-meter intermediate hurdles--a grueling event that requires its participants to leap ten hurdles in a quarter mile race. Moses owned one of modern sport's most celebrated "streaks" in this event, at one point compiling 107 consecutive victories. Most athletes retire from the hurdles after two or three years of world-class competition. Moses ran races until well into his thirties, and having won gold medals at the 1976 and 1984 Olympic Games even tried to make a comeback in 1992. As Frank Deford noted in Sports Illustrated, Moses in his heyday during the 1980s "was not only a hero to the world, but also, within his own subculture, an adviser, a spokesman, a counselor, a mediator, a diplomat.... No athlete in any sport is so respected by his peers as Moses is in track and field."

An introspective and solitary man, Moses was often misunderstood by the legions of reporters and fans who followed his career. He preferred to train alone--often without the benefit of a coach--and used lessons from his college degree in physics to perfect his running and leaping techniques. His winning formula of a standard thirteen strides between each hurdle has become the stuff of legend among track-and-field athletes, and as of 1994, his time of 47.02 in the 400-meter hurdles is the world record for the event. All of this achievement exacted an enormous price in terms of physical wear-and-tear. Moses, who was at one time among the best-paid track competitors in the world, told Sports Illustrated: "People see the star life. They say, 'You're lucky. All you have to do is run.' I laugh and say let's compare. If you were a lawyer, you'd have to be on the Supreme Court to be equal in performance. Competition is fierce everywhere."

Moses was born on August 31, 1955, in Dayton, Ohio. Growing up in Dayton, Moses never dreamed of becoming an Olympic track star. His parents, Irving and Gladys Moses, were both educators--his father an elementary school principal, his mother a curriculum supervisor for the city's public schools. Needless to say, Moses grew up in an environment where academics were stressed. Sports were secondary, a treat to be savored if good grades were maintained.

As a high school student, Moses chose to be transported by bus to Fairview High School, where he was one of some 20 blacks in an enrollment of 800. He was an excellent scholar who took summer school courses in science and math for extra credit. "I was always the guy kids came to for help," he recalled in Sports Illustrated. Moses's small size--only five-foot-eight and 135 pounds as a senior--mitigated against his playing football and basketball. Instead he tried out for the track team. He was serious enough about his chosen sport to want to win, but he still considered track-and-field a hobby, like playing the saxophone. SL Moses won an academic scholarship to Morehouse University in Atlanta, Georgia. There he majored in physics and continued to indulge in his hobby of running in hurdling races. Ironically, while Morehouse had a track team, it did not have a track. Moses worked out with a part-time coach, the Rev. Lloyd Jackson, and a friend, Steven Price. "Athletes aren't privileged at Morehouse," Moses told Sports Illustrated. As late as 1975 he was still setting modest goals for himself in sports--far more important was the 3.5 average he was maintaining in his classes. By Christmas of that year, however, he began to formulate new plans, including a possible trip to the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Quebec.

Something else happened to Moses at Morehouse. His legs grew longer while his weight remained trim; suddenly he was six-foot-two and 165 pounds. At his new height he seemed to skim the intermediate hurdles effortlessly, and his long legs allowed him to take fewer strides between each hurdle. When he began to build his endurance, the stage was set for Olympic qualification. Moses served notice, so to speak, at the 1976 Florida Relays in Gainesville. He did not win any of the hurdles races he entered there, but his performance captured the attention of the U. S. Olympic track-and-field coach, Leroy Walker. "Anybody who knew anything about hurdling could see that if they were pointing this guy to something other than the 400 intermediates, they had the wrong race," Walker told Sports Illustrated. "His size and speed; his base, the ability to carry the stride; his 'skim,' what we call the measurement of the stride over the hurdle--he had it all.... It was obvious nobody would handle him in Montreal. I went to Europe and told them: 'You're all running for second.'"

Moses worked with Walker through the spring of 1976 and indeed qualified for the U. S. Olympic team that summer. At the Olympic Games in Montreal he took the gold medal in the 400-meter intermediates with a new world record time of 47.63 seconds. Sports Illustrated correspondent Curry Kirkpatrick noted that the medal-winning performance was "the beginning of track and field's most phenomenal streak." It was also the beginning of a love-hate relationship between Moses and the media. Moses wore sunglasses all the time outdoors--they were prescription lenses that he needed in order to see the hurdles. Because he wore them, however, he was perceived as aloof or even hostile to reporters. "I know it was difficult to relate to me back then," Moses told Sports Illustrated. "I was black, studying physics and engineering. I was from a small school nobody ever heard of. A guy who took up this race and four months later won the gold medal. And I had predicted it. All this was a fantasy. Then the sunglasses. And they wanted to make me more of a fantasy. But did anybody stop to ask if the sunglasses were prescription? My eyes have been sensitive to light since the fifth grade."

The public remained cool to Moses as he embarked on a series of international track-and-field events. In September of 1977 he began an unbeaten streak that would last nine years, nine months, and nine days when he took the World Cup 400-meter hurdles in 47.58 seconds. For the next four years, the only person competing on Moses's level seemed to be Moses himself. He broke his own world record again in 1980, with a 47.13 time in a race in Milan. Three years later he set another world record at Koblenz, in West Germany, when he ran the hurdles in 47.02 seconds.

Moses was one of many athletes who were bitterly disappointed when president Jimmy Carter announced an American boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games. Then at the very peak of his career, Moses seems certain to have won another gold medal in the hurdles during those games. As his unbeaten streak lengthened, and he became a bona fide celebrity in Europe and America, Moses turned his attentions to the business side of the sport. He effectively challenged the cartels of event promoters who had banded together to keep appearance fees artificially low. He also lobbied for the rights of amateur athletes to receive above-board remuneration for their services on a variety of fronts. As his fame grew, Moses supplemented his income with product endorsements and other activities that brought him an estimated $500,000 each year. For some years in the 1980s, he was the best-paid track star in the world.

With the help of his wife, Myrella, Moses also improved his public image. He was sought as a spokesman against the use of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs, and he was accorded the honor of reciting the Olympic oath at the beginning of the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles, California. It was remarkable that Moses qualified for the 1984 Olympic team in an event that requires youth and stamina, but it was even more amazing that he kept his streak going in the Olympics, winning his second gold medal. Honors bestowed upon him during the period included the 1983 Sullivan Award for best American amateur athlete, and a "sportsman of the year" citation in 1984 from Sports Illustrated. Of Moses's 1984 Olympic performance, Frank Deford wrote: "Edwin Moses ... managed not only to win, but also to win our affection.... He's the ultimate specialist, taking one arcane event, the 400-meter hurdles, and refining it, redefining it, crystallizing it, to the point where the race is now one with the man."

Winning brought its own set of problems, however. As his streak grew toward 100 consecutive wins, Moses told Sports Illustrated: "Being this good is a dilemma. It's almost as if I've painted myself into a circle. So much winning.... The irony is that it seems as if the final chapter must be that I lose." Indeed, by 1985 some younger hurdlers were suggesting that Moses chose his races carefully, in order to avoid competitors who might beat him. In a rare fit of pique, Moses answered these charges in Esquire by saying: "Look at the skeletons I've left behind. I've been through generations of hurdlers. I'll be retiring a few more before I'm done."

To make matters worse, Moses endured much adverse publicity when he was arrested on charges of soliciting a prostitute in Los Angeles in 1985. Subsequently acquitted in a jury trial--and vehemently denying the charges all along--Moses nonetheless lost some of his endorsement contracts the following year. As the flap over that incident subsided, it was clear that Moses would have to face the top American challengers in the hurdles in order to protect his professional reputation.

His day of reckoning came in June of 1987, at a race in Madrid. Moses--31 at the time--was beaten by 21-year-old Danny Harris, thus ending the infamous Edwin Moses streak at 107 wins in nine and three-quarters years. For his part, Moses professed no great disappointment over the loss. "I have been running under tremendous pressure recently," he told Sports Illustrated. "Now I can get back to concentrating on running fast instead of worrying about winning all the time." Moses did indeed rebound after that, winning his second world title in Rome in 1987. He took the world title race by just two hundredths of a second, over Danny Harris.

Inevitably, age took its toll on Edwin Moses. Probably his greatest disappointment came in 1988, when he qualified for the U.S. Olympic team that went to Seoul, South Korea, but failed to win any races. He was 33 at the time--a good decade older than most of the other hurdlers--and he had suffered back and knee injuries that required hours of painful physical therapy every day. In the wake of the 1988 Olympics, Moses's career seemed to be moving in new directions. In 1989 he became a member of the United States Olympic Committee's substance abuse committee. He also began training with a bobsled team in hopes of winning a berth at the 1992 Winter Olympics. Those hopes never materialized, nor was he able to mount a comeback as a hurdler for the 1992 Summer Games.

"I won't be competing in any more Olympics," Moses told Jet magazine in 1992. "In the mornings when I wake up, I'm not able to walk." Moses has not retired to the proverbial rocking chair, though. He still competes occasionally in European races for older athletes, and he hopes to be of continued use to the U. S. or the International Olympic Committee. It is not likely that anyone will ever challenge his winning streak in the 400-meter hurdles. As Kenny Moore concluded in Sports Illustrated, Moses "has even outrun history. A loss or two couldn't mar this, the most dominant career of any runner ever."

Awards

Sullivan Award for best amateur athlete in the United States, 1983; named "Sportsman of the Year" by Sports Illustrated, 1984.

Further Reading

Sources

• Ebony, May 1984, p. 95; July 1992, p. 82.
• Jet, June 29, 1992, p. 49.
• Newsweek, October 10, 1988, p. 57.
• People, July 23, 1984, p. 48; September 19, 1988, p. 48.
• Sports Illustrated, July 30, 1984, pp. 52-65; December 24, 1984, pp. 32-44; June 9, 1986, pp. 30-7; June 15, 1987, pp. 34-5.
• Washington Post, April 28, 1985, p. F-1.

— Mark Kram

For more information on Edwin Moses, visit Britannica.com.

Quotes:

"Concentration is why some athletes are better than others. You develop that concentration in training. You can't be lackluster in training and concentrate in a meet."