Jim Hines, the first athlete to under 10 seconds in the 100-meter dash, dies

Athletics, a sport of hundredths and centimeters in the maximum-minimum expression of its records and measurements, is a story of broken barriers, of borders crossed, of boundaries left behind.. And no barrier so recognizable, no border so accepted, no boundary so marked as those that the 100 meters break, transpose and erase.. the 100 meters. The shortest race and, therefore, the most lightning; the one that almost equally fascinates the amateur and the uninformed, the expert and the layman…

If there is a frontier par excellence in athletics, it is the 10 seconds in the 100 meters. And the one who transposed it for the first time has just died. “The first man”, como Neil Armstrong. That man was called Jim Hines.. And he did it, on October 14, 1968, in Mexico City, during those “Black Power” Olympic Games, the “Fosbury Flop”, the “superhuman” records of Tommie Smith, Lee Evans, Bob Beamon, Viktor Saneyev. .. And, yes, Jim Hines in the 2,300-meter altitude of the Mexican capital. The day before, the 13th, he had escaped from the Olympic Village to make love to his wife, “before the race of my life.”

Hines, trained at Texas Southern University by Bobby Morrow, the superb white sprinter, triple Olympic champion in Melbourne56, was born in Dumas (Arkansas) on September 10, 1946.. So, he was just 22 years old.. He was the son of a bricklayer from Oakland and, in the “trials” of Olympic selection, held in Sacramento, in June, he had run, on the 20th, in 9.9, manual timing, considered 10.03 electronically.. In the final he was bested by Charlie Greene, a graduate of the University of Nebraska.. Both, along with Melvin Pender, 30, an Army captain, would represent their country at the Games.

In the first Olympic tartan track, installed electronic timing, in the series, Greene and the Cuban Hermes Ramírez (eliminated in the semifinals) ran in 10.00. In the final, the first in history with eight black athletes, Hines, in his words, started off the blocks faster than ever. Not as quickly, however, as Pender, who Hines and Greene caught at 50 meters. At 70, Hines was already the first. Ended up in those immortals 9.95. Greene (10.07) suffered a cramp and was overtaken “in extremis” by the Jamaican Lennox Miller (10.04). Pender would be sixth with 10.17. A few days later, on the 20th, the three Americans, together with Ronnie RaySmith, and with Hines in the last relay, established a new world record for the 4×100 relay (38.24).

Hines had already signed, on the 18th, a three-year contract with the “football” Miami Dolphins (what we call “American football” around here), who had chosen him in the corresponding “draft”. Only, with a completely marginal role, he served two and was hired by the Kansas City Chiefs, with whom he did not reach any relevance either.

He did not agree with the protest of the black athletes, whom he accused of having ruined everyone's lives, without benefit to anyone.. “When we returned from Mexico, nobody wanted to know anything about us”. His career in athletics was therefore as brief as it was glorious.. His record, until it was broken by Calvin Smith (9.93) at the also altitude of the Air Force Academy, in Colorado Springs, on July 3, 1983, remained at the head of the tables for 14 years, 8 months and 19 days. Not even Usain Bolt's has lasted (yet) that long. Since 1968, “countless” athletes have gone under 10 seconds. But that is still the golden frontier.

Shortly after returning from Mexico, Hines entered his Houston apartment to discover, to his dismay, that he had been robbed.. The television, the stereo, his wife's jewelry and…. the gold medals. He placed an ad in a local newspaper and they were returned to him by mail in a brown envelope.

Hines led an anonymous existence as a municipal employee. In some ways, he was bigger than himself.