Sprinter, born in Jamaica, now living in Britain. The most successful of all British athletes, and the oldest Olympic 100 m champion, in 1993 he held the World, Olympic, Commonwealth, and European Cup titles for the 100 m, achieving 9·87 seconds at the world championships in Stuttgart, Germany (a European record). He retired in 1997.
| Medal record | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Men's athletics | |||
| Olympic Games | |||
| Gold | 1992 Barcelona | 100 m | |
| Silver | 1988 Seoul | 100 m | |
| Silver | 1988 Seoul | 4x100 m | |
| Commonwealth Games | |||
| Gold | 1990 Auckland | 100 m | |
| Gold | 1990 Auckland | 4x100 m | |
| Gold | 1994 Victoria | 100m | |
| World Championships | |||
| Gold | 1993 Stuttgart | 100 m | |
| European Championships | |||
| Gold | 1986 Stuttgart | 100 m | |
| Gold | 1990 Split | 100 m | |
| Gold | 1994 Helsinki | 100 m | |
| Bronze | 1990 Split | 200 m | |
Linford Christie, OBE (born April 2, 1960) is an English former athlete, and the only English man to win Olympic, World, Commonwealth and European 100 m gold medals. Christie's career was tainted after he was found guilty of using the performance enhancing drug nandralone whilst in semi-retirement, although it has to be said that he was found to have metabolites of nandrolone in his urine which has been shown to be able to be produced by taking legal nutritional supplements that may erroneously contain metabolites of nandrolone (Tseng YL, Kuo FH and Sun KH, 2005) and hence may have been accidental as in numerous other doping cases relating to nandrolone.
Biography
Early years
Born in Saint Andrew, Jamaica, Christie followed his parents, who had emigrated five years before, to England at the age of seven.
Track career
Christie's early track career was not promising.
At the 1988 Summer Olympics, Christie won silver behind Carl Lewis, though only after Ben Johnson, who set a new World Record in 9.79 seconds, had been disqualified for a doping offence.
By the end of his track career Christie had won 23 medals overall, more than any other British male athlete before or since.
Later years and relationship with the press
Ironically, Christie had the previous year won a libel action against the journalist John McVicar.
During his track career Christie frequently crossed swords with the press over jibes about his physique, notoriously "Linford's lunchbox" (concerning his genitalia in track shorts) which especially angered him.
In 1993 Christie formed a sports management and promotions company, Nuff Respect, with sprint-hurdler Colin Jackson.
Christie's famous claim that he started races on the "B of the Bang" inspired a spectacular sculpture of the same name, officially unveiled by Christie in Manchester in 2004.
Away from the track, Christie hosted the BBC television children's series Record Breakers for a time until its cancellation in 2001.
Role in the 2012 Olympics bid
In the successful London bid for the 2012 Olympic Games, Christie was absent from the team, even though he states he attempted to get involved. He is name-checked in the Aswad song Shine: Linford Christie say nobody alive can catch me/ Moving like lightning with enough energy Christie appeared in a music video for the song Won't Bring Me Down by the rapper S.O.E.
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