Athletics at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games:

The favorite was the defending champion, Marie-José Pérec, who had also won the 1991 and 1995 World Championships and the 1994 Europeans. In Atlanta she was trying to win the 200/400 double, which had only been done before at the Olympics by Valerie Brisco-Hooks in 1984, but in a boycotted Olympics. On the men’s side, Michael Johnson was favored to win the same double, and would succeed in dramatic fashion. The 400 was first for Pérec. She led thru the first 200 metres, even at that point with Pauline Davis of the Bahamas, Australia’s Cathy Freeman a stride to the rear. Pérec pushed the turn but Freeman was even stronger, pulling even at the top of the stretch. They were still even with 40 metres to go, but Pérec had a bit more in reserve and won by three metres. Freeman, an Aboriginal Australian, won the silver medal, with the bronze going to Nigeria’s Falilat Ogunkoya. A few days later Pérec would win the 200, completing the rare double.