PHOTO: Bildbyrån
During the 1990s, sprinter Michael Johnson dominated the distances 200 meters and 400 meters.
The main achievement was a world record in the first-mentioned distance during the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996.
Today, the 55-year-old American lives a completely different life, having recovered from a stroke.
Do you remember Michael Johnson? The track and field athlete and sprinter from the USA broke through in the 1980s and subscribed to gold medals in the 1990s where Johnson took home nine World Cup golds and four Olympic golds.
The last was salvaged at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, he broke the world record in the 200 meters when he clocked in at 19.32, a record that stood until 2008 when Usain Bolt took over the record.
Had a stroke
After a training session at his home in August 2018, the four-time Olympic champion suddenly felt a tingling in his left arm.
– I went to my weights and thought “have I got a cramp”? I called my wife Armine and said there was something that didn’t feel right, Johnson said in an interview with The Guardian in 2019.
It wasn’t convulsions that afflicted Michael Johnson, it was something much worse than that. The then 50-year-old Johnson had suffered a stroke. Although he did not experience any pain, he decided to go to the hospital, a decision that turned out to be absolutely correct.
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Because after doctors performed a scan on the brain, they were able to determine that it was precisely a stroke, something that Johnson then tweeted about shortly after:
“It seems these things can happen to anyone, even someone who used to be the fastest man in the world,” Johnson wrote at the time.
“Couldn’t go”
Michael Johnson’s stroke had attacked the right hemisphere of the brain, and after having an MRI of the brain, the athletic body was completely changed.
– I couldn’t go. I couldn’t stand or put any weight on one leg. The numbness in my arm increased and I had no feeling in two of my fingers, while I completely lost feeling in one of my feet, Johnson said in the interview with The Guardian.
However, Johnson was determined to recover from his stroke, but it was not an easy journey. The very first step in the recovery process was all about learning to walk again. The first distance was 200 meters – a distance he had previously covered in 19.32 seconds. This time it took 10 minutes.
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The article continues after the video.
Michael Johnson breaks world records in the 200 and 400 meters respectively during the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996.
The way back
Gradually, Michael Johnson began to recover, and slowly but surely he began to build up his strength, fine motor skills, and power again. During the process, Johnson described how draining it was to have to relearn the simplest of things that you otherwise take for granted. But after eight months of hard work, he declared to The Guardian that he was “100% recovered.”
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After recovering, Michael Johnson has made a name for himself as a commentator in athletics, and he has also appeared as a pundit on several Olympic broadcasts. But his biggest and most time-consuming occupation is running his own company, Michael Johnson Performance, a company that runs training facilities for young and promising athletes. He also works to raise awareness for stroke, with the rationale that “if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.”