Donovan Bailey

Donovan Anthony Bailey was born on 16 December 1967 in Manchester Parish, Jamaica, the fourth of five sons of George and Daisy Bailey. As a boy he helped tend the family's chickens, goats and pigs before school. He moved to Canada in 1980, aged 13, and in Oakville, Ontario, he first pursued basketball and his studies before turning to sprinting.

Bailey's breakthrough came at the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg, where he won the 100 metres. A coach's work on his attitude and technique had cut about three-tenths of a second from his times, putting him in an elite class of sprinters. In February 1996 he set an indoor world record in the 50 metres at Reno, and in June he won the 100 metres at the Canadian Olympic trials.

At the Atlanta Olympics on 27 July 1996, after a disrupted start to the final, in which Britain's Linford Christie was disqualified for false starts, Bailey won the 100 metres in 9.84 seconds, a new world record. He was the first Canadian to legally break ten seconds, and only the second man after Carl Lewis to hold the Olympic, world and world record titles at once.

Six days later he anchored Canada's 4x100 metres relay team of Robert Esmie, Glenroy Gilbert and Bruny Surin to Olympic gold in 37.69, Canada's first Olympic relay title. He later apologised to his teammates for celebrating too early, which cost them the world record. After the Games, an American sportscaster argued that Michael Johnson, who won the 200 and 400 metres, was faster, and in 1997 Bailey and Johnson raced at Toronto's SkyDome to settle it, a race Bailey won after Johnson pulled up injured.

Bailey also won relay golds at the world championships in 1995 and 1997 and at the 1994 Commonwealth Games. He was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 2004 and again in 2008 with his 1996 relay team, and he is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a member of the Order of Ontario. He remains one of the best-known figures in Canadian sport.