Track has fallen on some hard times like tennis with the public. I used to watch the pre Olympic stuff as well as the Olympics. I think the death of Wide World of Sports and the plethora of options today matters
People remember the 72 Olympics for terrorism and the Soviets stealing our basketball gold
Did you know a Russian white boy won the 100 and 200 meters. Just 4 years after the black gloves on the medal stand for the 200
Bob Beamon, Carl Lewis, the 80's USA Women were all great. Couldn't tell you anyone other than Ussain Bolt today
Sad
Valeriy Borzov. I remember as a kid reading about and wondering how that could be. He looked [/i]slow in my young eyes. I'm sure steroids played no part in his exploits.
I don't follow names much either except for the sprints, where I tend to know who the fastest five or six are in the 1 and the 2. Carl Lewis is a guy who should be more famous today except that he had an incredibly annoying personality and he was a little effeminate and off-putting to the average Joe. He tried way too hard; who can forget his singing phase and the national anthem at some basketball game.
But, he was a consistent sub 10 100 meter guy, sub 20 200 meter guy and was probably the most dominant long jumper over a career of all time. Nobody beat him in the jump ever during his run, and had like a shit ton of jumps over 28' feet. But, he didn't break the record ... someone else did ... and his all-time best in the 100 and 200 have been beaten many times and he didn't hold a sprint record for any length of tim. So he was dominant in the sense that he was the last Jesse Owens-type as a guy who could do the 100 and the 200 and the jump and do them at an elite level. Everyone else is and was a specialist. But he was never Usain Bolt, except arguably as a jumper, but he never got that record. Thanks Beamon!