Born: 21 December 1959, United States
Died: 21 September 1998
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Flo-Jo, Florence Delorez Griffith Joyner
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
Florence Griffith Joyner, better known as Flo Jo, was one of the fastest women in the world in the 1980s, and she had the medals and records to prove it. Yet her critics—largely male athletes—claimed she must be using drugs to achieve her incredible performances. They even used her sudden and tragic death in 1998 to claim that it must have been the result of her purported drug use. Her actual cause of death was epileptic seizures, caused by a congenital brain abnormality, and an autopsy confirmed that the only drugs in her system were acetaminophen (aspirin) and the antihistamine Benadryl.
In response, Prince Alexandre de Merode, chairman of the International Olympic Committee’s medical commission, told The New York Times that she was singled out for extra, rigorous drug testing during the 1988 Olympic Games due to the baseless rumours. De Merode stated that Manfred Donike, who was at that time considered to be the foremost expert on drugs and sports, failed to discover any banned substances during the testing, saying that “all possible and imaginable” analyses had been performed, and there was no basis for “the slightest suspicion.”