Editing Obadele Thompson (section)

====1996====
Obadele started the 1996 season on fire, winning his first NCAA Indoor Championship in an NCAA indoor 200 m record.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://in.milesplit.com/meets/179504/results/312951/formatted#.Wo0T5-ZzI2w|title=NCAA DI Indoor Championships – Results|work=MileSplit Indiana|access-date=2018-02-21|language=en}}</ref> His time of 20.36 sec. shattered the old mark of 20.59 sec. set seven years earlier by four-time Olympic Champion, Michael Johnson, and equaling the then third-fast time in that event.
To celebrate his 20th birthday, Thompson ran 45.38 sec. in his first competitive 400 m since he was 13 years old. Two weeks later, in his season-opening 100 m, he clocked the fastest time ever recorded by a human under any conditions—a wind-assisted time of 9.69 sec.—which could not be ratified as an official world record because the tailwind (+5&nbsp;m/s) far exceeded the +2.0&nbsp;m/s legal limit. This performance broke the mark set by Carl Lewis in 1988 (9.78 sec.) and stood for 12 years until [[Tyson Gay]] ran a wind-aided 9.68 sec. at the 2008 US Olympic Trials.

Thompson sustained a groin injury during that race, forcing him to miss practice for a week. Injuries struck again months later in the semifinals of the 100 and 200 metres ([[groin]] and [[hamstring]] [[Strain (injury)|strains]], respectively) at the 1996 NCAA Outdoor Championships in [[Eugene, Oregon]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/specials/olympics/cntdown/0602oly-run-ncaa-thompson.html|title=Thompson Takes a Risk and Comes Up Limping|website=archive.nytimes.com|access-date=2018-03-06}}</ref> He withdrew from the meet, extinguishing the anticipated showdown with [[Trinidadians|Trinidadian]] sprinter, [[Ato Boldon]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://trackandfieldnews.com/images/stories/Rankings/02-m200Rank.pdf|title=Track & Field News}}{{Dead link|date=April 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> of [[University of California, Los Angeles|UCLA]].

Sidelined by those injuries for three weeks, Thompson's once bright Olympic prospects darkened grimly as he returned to training with only one month to prepare for his first Olympic Games. At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, he reached the 100 m semifinals, but exceeded expectations by finishing fourth in the 200 m finals behind Michael Johnson, who set an amazing new world record of 19.32 sec., [[Frankie Fredericks]] of [[Namibia]] (19.68 sec.) and Boldon (19.80 sec.). Obadele's fourth-place run of 20.14 sec. established a new Barbados national record, and placed him ahead of [[Michael Marsh (sprinter)|Mike Marsh]] (the defending Olympic 200 m champion) and [[Jeff Williams (athlete)|Jeff Williams]] (1995 World Championship 200 m bronze medalist). At only 20 years old, ''[[Track & Field News]]'' magazine ranked Thompson #5 in the 200 m in the world.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://trackandfieldnews.com/images/stories/Rankings/02-m200Rank.pdf|title=Track & Field News World Rankings – Men's 200|website=www.trackandfieldnews.com}}{{Dead link|date=April 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>