He is the first man to have crossed this mythical barrier and still symbolic in his sport. Jim Hines, the first sprinter in history to go under 10 seconds over 100 meters, died Saturday at the age of 76. An information announced by several international media Sunday and confirmed in the night from Sunday to Monday by the international athletics federation. The latter does not specify the causes of death of the former athlete.
Jim Hines made sports history in 1968. That year, the sprinter became the first man to complete the queen distance in less than ten seconds at the U.S. Track and Field Championships in June. A time measured at 9.9 seconds manually, from 10.3 to electronic timing. The same year, he pushed the world record even further by winning gold at the Mexico Olympics with an electronically validated time of 9 seconds and 95 hundredths.
In these Mexican Olympic Games, marked by protests against racial inequality on the podium of his compatriots Tommie Smith and John Carlos, Hines won a second gold medal with the American 200x4m relay, a race where the France of Roger Bambuck (100th individual), Gérard Fenouil Jocelyn Delecour and Claude Piquemal won a bronze medal.
His record withstood the onslaught of his successors for 15 years until July 1983 when the American Calvin Smith signed a time of 9′93 in a meeting in Colorado. Jim Hines then retired from track and field to try his luck in American football, where he wore jerseys for the Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs. He then worked with youth in Houston, Texas.