Edwin Moses

Edwin Corley Moses was born on August 31, 1955, in Dayton, Ohio, to parents who were both educators; his father also served as a Tuskegee Airman. He attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, where he studied physics and industrial engineering while running for the school track team, though the college had no track of its own—Moses trained at local public high school facilities. He earned an MBA from Pepperdine University in 1994.

Moses initially competed in the 120-yard hurdles and 440-yard dash, running only one 400-meter hurdles race before March 1976. Once he focused on the event, his 6'2" frame allowed him to use a consistent 13-step pattern between hurdles, pulling away in the second half as rivals often took 15 strides or changed their rhythm. At the 1976 Montreal Olympics, his first international meet, he won gold and set a world record of 47.63 seconds. He broke his own record the next year at Drake Stadium with 47.45 seconds, then lost to West Germany’s Harald Schmid on August 26, 1977, in Berlin—his fourth defeat in the event. The following week, he beat Schmid by 15 meters in Düsseldorf and did not lose again for nine years, nine months, and nine days. Moses qualified for the 1980 U.S. Olympic team but could not compete due to the boycott; he received one of 461 Congressional Gold Medals created for those athletes. At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, he recited the Olympic Oath and won his second gold medal. By the time Danny Harris beat him in Madrid on June 4, 1987, Moses had won 122 consecutive races, set the world record twice more, and claimed three World Cup titles, a World Championship gold, and two Olympic golds. After that loss, he won ten more races in a row, including a second world gold in Rome in August 1987. He finished third in his final 400-meter hurdles race at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

In 1979, Moses took a leave from his job at General Dynamics to run full-time. Over the next two years, he helped reform Olympic eligibility rules, pushing for an Athletes Trust Fund that allowed athletes to receive government or private stipends, direct payments, and endorsement money without losing eligibility. He presented the plan to IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch, and it was ratified in 1981, forming the basis for many Olympic athlete support programs, including the USOC’s Direct Athlete Assistance Programs.

Moses was named Track & Field News Athlete of the Year in 1980, despite missing the Moscow Games. In 1981, he became the first recipient of USA Track & Field’s Jesse Owens Award. He received the AAU’s James E. Sullivan Award in 1983, was named ABC’s Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year in 1984, and shared Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year with gymnast Mary Lou Retton that same year, when he also delivered the Athlete’s Oath at the 1984 Olympics. Dayton renamed two streets “Edwin C. Moses Boulevard” in 1984. In 1999, ESPN ranked him #47 on its SportCentury 50 Greatest Athletes list. He received the Laureus Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.

As a sports administrator, Moses helped develop anti-drug policies and assisted track and field in creating one of the most stringent random in-competition drug testing systems. In December 1988, he designed amateur sports’ first random out-of-competition drug testing program. His background in physics helped him create structures and protocols that reduced the use of performance-enhancing drugs in athletics for decades.

After retiring from track, Moses competed in a 1990 World Cup bobsled race in Winterberg, Germany, winning a two-man bronze medal with Brian Shimer. He was inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1994. Since 2000, he has served as chairman of the Laureus World Sports Academy, which aims to increase participation in sport and use it as a tool for social change. Through the Laureus Sports for Good Foundation, dozens of Olympic and world champion athletes assist disadvantaged youth worldwide. In 2008, Moses presented the Dayton Literary Peace Prize’s Lifetime Achievement Award to Taylor Branch, Martin Luther King Jr.’s biographer.