- Leroy Burrell
__NOTOC__Leroy Russel Burrell (born
February 21 ,1967 ) is a former American athlete who twice set theworld record for the 100 meters sprint, setting a time of 9.90 seconds in June 1991. This was then broken byCarl Lewis within a month. Burrell set the record for a second time when he ran 9.85 s in 1994, a record that stood until the 1996 Olympics inAtlanta , whenDonovan Bailey ran 9.84 s.Burrell grew up in
Lansdowne, Pennsylvania and attended Penn Wood High School. Suffering from poor eyesight accentuated by a childhood eye injury, he was poor at other sports but excelled on the track from an early age. He studied at theUniversity of Houston , where he was a successful participant in its track program.Burrell was plagued by injuries and bad luck throughout his career, particularly around major championships. He won gold in the 100 m ahead of Carl Lewis at
1990 Goodwill Games in Seattle. He won the silver in the 100 m behind Lewis at the 1991 World Championships, and at the1992 Summer Olympics was false-started in the 100 m final and, when the race finally restarted, his reaction off the line was slow and finished fifth. He did though manage to win a relay gold as part of the US team atBarcelona .Since his
retirement in 1998, Burrell has replaced his old college mentor, Tom Tellez, as coach of the University of Houston's track team.Personal life
He married
Michelle Finn , also a sprinter, in 1994, and they have two sons. His younger sister Dawn also competed in track and field on the highest level. According to an essay fromPETA , Leroy Burrell has been a vegetarian.cite web|publisher=PETA | title = Winning Athletes Powered by Veggies |url = http://www.peta.org/living/at-summer2003/veg5.html| accessdate = 2008-03-05]tatistics
:"As of September 9, 2008"
Personal bests
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