Silvio Leonard

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Medal record
Silvio Leonard
Men's Athletics
Competitor for Cuba
Olympic Games
Silver	Moscow 1980	100 metres

Silvio Leonard (born September 20, 1955) is a former sprinter from Cuba. He was the second athlete to run the 100 metres in less than 10 seconds with electronic timing, running in 9.98 seconds on August 11, 1977 in Guadalajara. The first was 1968 Olympic champion Jim Hines. He was also fastest in the world in 77 in the 200 metres also with a time of 20.08.

Leornard was 3 times pan american games champion 1975 100 and 1979 100/200. He also won the 1977 100 metre Gold at the World student Games. In the central american and caribbean championships 1974 he won double Golds in the 100/200 and in 1978 he again defended these same titles again, taking 4 golds in total. As well as been cuban champion, he also in 1979 won the soviet 100 metre championship, as well as winning the world cup in the 200 and runner up in the 100.

At the 1980 Summer Olympics Leonard won a silver medal in 100 metres, finishing behind Allan Wells of Great Britain. He then went on to finish 4th in the Olympic 200 metre final in a time of 20.30, narrowly missing out in another medal.

Here is the video of the 1980 race in which he got a silver medal, despite being expected to win gold. This may have been due to an injury he received 3 years earlier in Mexico, when he ran the 9.98 time stated above. On the video he appears running in line 1. Allan Wells, who won gold, wasn't even ranked, but won with a time of 10.25.