Carl Lewis.

Carl Lewis. Carl Lewis, born in 1961, American track-and-field athlete, who won a total of nine gold medals at the Olympic Games in 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1996, including four straight gold medal performances in the long jump. The feat made Lewis the second competitor in Olympic history to win the same event in four consecutive Olympic Games. American discus thrower Al Oerter was the first. Frederick Carlton Lewis was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and educated at the University of Houston. He qualified for the United States Olympic team for the 1980 Games in Moscow but was unable to compete because United States participation at the Games was canceled by President Jimmy Carter as a protest against the invasion of Afghanistan by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). In 1981 Lewis won the James E. Sullivan Memorial Award, given annually by the Amateur Athletic Union of the United States (AAU) to the outstanding amateur athlete in the country. At the 1983 track-and-field world championships in Helsinki, Finland, he won the 100-meter dash and the long jump, and was a member of the winning 4 x 100-meter relay team. The next year at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, Lewis enjoyed his greatest performance. His feat of winning gold medals in the 100meter and 200-meter dashes, the long jump, and the 4 x 100-meter relay had only been accomplished once before, by American athlete Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany. Lewis won the long jump and was a member of the winning 4 x 100-meter relay team at the 1987 world championships in Rome, Italy. Although he was beaten by Canadian athlete Ben Johnson in the 100-meter dash at the world championships, he was retroactively declared the winner when Johnson was disqualified the next year at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, for having used banned substances. Having placed second in the 100-meter dash at the 1988 Olympics, Lewis was declared the winner of this race upon Johnson's disqualification. Lewis also won the long jump and placed second in the 200-meter dash. At the 1991 world championships in Tokyo, Japan, he again won the 100-meter dash and was a member of the winning 4 x 100-meter relay team. Lewis won two more gold medals at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, in the 4 x 100-meter relay and in the long jump. During the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, he won his fourth straight gold medal in the long jump. This victory made him only the fourth man to win nine gold medals at the Summer Games, after American swimmer Mark Spitz, Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi, and American athlete Ray Ewry. (Two of Ewry's medals, however, are not considered official by Olympic governing bodies. See Encarta's article on Ewry for more information.) Lewis set numerous world records in his events and was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1985. He retired from competition in 1997. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.