Donovan Bailey and five objects that show change in athletics history

On the night of the 1996 Atlanta 100m final, eight athletes lined up at the starting blocks. Bailey was in lane six, a prime location. He wore this singlet.

There were not two, but three false starts in the race. Linford Christie, the reigning Olympic champion, was disqualified. After a slow start, Bailey made up time and space. In interviews since, Bailey has said that he knew he had won the race by the 70m point.

Reactions across Canada were euphoric. To this day, many remember where they were when Bailey won.

Earl “Tommy” Thomas (1895–1971) wore these leather track shoes when he won gold in the 110m hurdles at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics. His time was 14.8 seconds, which set a world record.

Thomas’s track shoes were handmade for him in London, England. They had what was then a new technology: six heavy-duty spikes placed on the bottom front of the shoe. Spikes helped runners get a grip on the loose gravel mix that track surfaces were made up of at the time.

Thomas’s spikes predate the lightweight, mass-produced shoes that are common today. Over the course of the 20th century, evolving shoe technology would become a multi-billion-dollar industry devoted to helping people run faster.

Myrtle Cook McGowan (1902–1985) earned an Olympic diploma at the 1928 Amsterdam Games. She was the anchor for the gold medal-winning 4 x 100m women’s relay team.

The year 1928 was the first time women were allowed to compete in athletics at the Olympics. Five events were open to women: 100m dash, 800m, 4 x 100m relay, high jump, and discus throw.

That year also marked the first time Canada sent a women’s team to the Summer Olympics. Cook was one of the six women representing Canada in athletics. She and her teammates — Fanny Rosenfeld, Jean Thompson, Florence Jane Bell, Ethel Smith, and Ethel Catherwood — were dubbed the “Matchless Six.”  A seventh athlete, Margaret Lambert, represented Canada in swimming.

These women were celebrated as heroes when they returned from the Olympics. More than 200,000 people greeted them at Toronto’s Union Station. Sport has long been a gateway for girls and women to gain more space and recognition in Canadian society.

If we can celebrate the triumph of a win, then we can remember moments of disappointment.

Perdita Felicien had a very human experience on a very big stage at the 2004 Athens Olympics. She was the gold-medal favourite in the women’s 100m hurdles. But she caught her foot going over the first hurdle in the final and fell. She was disqualified from the race.

The Museum of History interviewed Felicien for Shaping Canada, an oral history project you can learn more about here. She described the challenge of being known as “The girl who failed.” But as the two-time Olympian, 10-time national champion, and the first Canadian woman to win a gold medal at a World Championship points out, she’s also “The girl who got up.”

Brent Lakatos wore wheelchair-racing gloves like these while earning 13 Paralympic medals, including golds at London 2012, Rio 2016, and Paris 2024.

International para events use a classification system to group athletes based on different levels of capacity for fair competition. Lakatos competes in a range of events including the T53 100m, 400m, and 1500m events, as well as the T54 5000m.

In interviews, Lakatos credits his success to not being afraid to take risks and experiment with new techniques and equipment. This mentality reflects a much longer tradition that runs through athletics history: In order to break records and elevate performance, athletes must get creative and work hard.

Bailey’s gold-winning 1996 performance goes down as one of the best moments in Canadian sports history. It joins other memorable moments from athletics history and the ongoing quest for Citius, Altius, Fortius (faster, higher, stronger).