World champion shook off an untimely injury and first-night nerves to wipe away the legacy of Ben Johnson and deliver the Olympic 100m title for Canada, in a world record too

Olympic Games, Atlanta, July 27, 1996 mens 100m, first place, 9.84 (WR)

After winning the World Championships in 1995, the pressure was off for me. My entire goal was to make sure that I was prepared for the Olympic 100m final. Every single race, every single practice, was essentially trying to perfect that race.

On the circuit, not once did I care about the result or about the time. It was only about execution, only about getting out of the blocks, being consistent, standing up tall, driving in the middle of the track, so I could get to top speed, and then figuring out whether or not I needed to shut it down or work in the last part of the race.

Dan Pfaff has always been my coach, probably even today. I was very comfortable with the information he was giving me. I got bored with just training, training, training and he knew I wanted to run indoors. So he said: Okay, youve got to work on getting out of the blocks and transitioning, because I had a horrible start. I got some world records along the way over the 50m, beating guys who were world champions. It was really just working on the craft itself.

I got injured just before the Olympics. There were a lot of mind games being played. Linford Christie was the reigning champion and I respect him to the nth degree. He was fantastic at executing his race. I had beaten Linford a couple of times, but, in our last race going into the Olympics, Im like: Theres no way that Im going to lose to him. 

He got out of the blocks. I thought: Im going to catch him, come hell or high water, and in trying to do that I ended up over-striding. I flew back to see Dr Mark Lindsay. I call him Holy Hands because he is probably the best soft tissue specialist in the world. I believed that I was going to be okay.

He went through it all, breaking down the inflammation on a daily basis, working five to six hours per day: maybe a little weights, walking, stretching. Id be in freezing water for five minutes and then be in boiling hot water for another five minutes. We were doing all kinds of things that allowed us to be back.

The genius of my team made sure I was spot on in terms of treatment but the number one thing already seared on my brain was that there was zero chance I would not be competing.

I flew in from Texas because I was training there but every one of my friends and maybe every single person I grew up with in Oakville, Ontario which is about 30km outside of Toronto were in Atlanta, so it was a home Olympics for me. I got into Atlanta Stadium and saw a sea of Canadian flags, from the front seats all the way up to the rafters.

Ato Boldon believed he could win. Linford believed he could win. Frankie Fredericks believed he could win. But I knew I was going to win because Id spent the entire year perfecting exactly what I was going to do. In Lausanne, Dan and I had discussed breaking the world record there. And he said to me: Do you want to break it now or do you want to wait for Atlanta? I said: Im going to wait.

I was nervous at every major championships, but only for the first race, so I could barely sleep the night before the Olympics started. As soon as I got out and touched the track, that allowed me to be comfortable. Before semi-finals and finals, I would usually sleep like a baby.

The final had two false starts but I dont think it mattered. I was sixth after 40m but I just stayed relaxed and stayed tall. Its all reactive. There are two things that you cannot do in the 100m think and run at the same time. So I ran. And I won.

Breaking the Canadian record was amazing. Winning the Olympics was also amazing. I was like: Oh my god, I just ran 9.8. I didnt see the and-four part. 

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It was slower than I thought I was going to run but I accomplished something that can never be taken away from me, which is being an Olympic champion. My father was in the stands. My mother was watching from Jamaica.

As an entire country, Canada had gone through some dark times with Ben Johnson and I accepted the responsibility of carrying the country and the sport back into the good graces of track and field fans.

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When we went back to Canada, people were coming up to me to tell me what it meant to them, what it meant to their families, what it meant to their culture. To this day, theres still people telling me how they felt and what it meant. I was just trying to be Donovan, George and Daisys son.

From a Canadian perspective, all of a sudden, we realised that we could be great at something other than hockey. So you had womens sports, musicians people who were doing things with the confidence exuded from wearing the Canadian red and white.

As told to Mark Woods

Donovan Baileys autobiography, Undisputed  A Champions Life, a memoir of Olympic glory, the value of mentorship and the courage to champion your own excellence, is available from and published by Random House