Florence Griffith Joyner shattering the women's 100m world record at the 1988 U.S. Olympic Trials was honored by USA Track & Field as the 10^th greatest moment in U.S. track and field history in the last 25 years.

Griffith-Joyner dominated the competition in the women's 100 meters throughout the 1988 U.S. Olympic Trials in Indianapolis. In the opening round she ran the fastest time in history under any conditions with her wind-aided finish in 10.60 seconds, setting the stage for the quarterfinals.

Griffith-Joyner showed up for the next round wearing a purple outfit with the left leg cut away. As stunning as her appearance was at that moment, it was no comparison to her performance on the track that followed.

In her quarterfinal, Flo-Jo ran away from the field in the new "Beamonesque" world record time of 10.49 seconds, shattering the previous standard of 10.76 seconds set in 1984 by Evelyn Ashford. The wind reading for that race was 0.0 meters per second on a day when wind readings regularly exceeded 4.0 mps. The record still stands.

Later that summer at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Griffith-Joyner won the gold medal in the100 meters before posting the current world record of 21.34 seconds in winning the 200 meters. She added another gold medal in Seoul by running the third leg on the victorious U.S. 4x100m relay team before running the anchor leg on Team USA's silver medal winning 4x400m relay squad.

Griffith-Joyner, who died in her sleep on September 21, 1998 at her home in California, was inducted into the National Track & Field Hall of Fame in 1995.

click here for other top 25 performances

click here for other special notations