1989: In her heat, Jackie Joyner-Kersee ties the World Indoor Record for the 55-meter hurdles (7.37), then duplicates her feat in the final. Morocco’s Said Aouita, in his first American indoor race, regains the lead from Doug Padilla on the last turn to win at 3000 meters in a meet-record 7:47.07.
1990: Two-time Olympian Doug Padilla breaks the 3000-meter record set a year earlier with his 7:44.74 victory, his sixth win in nine years. It would be his last. Six years later, Padilla’s left leg was shattered when he was hit by a car while out for a run. He is now Director of Track and Field Operations at Brigham Young University, his alma mater.
1991: Greg Foster, at 32, wins the short hurdles for the eighth time in 12 years. The World Record-holder and two-time World Champion was coming back from a twice-broken arm and a stress fracture in his foot; he would go on to win a third World Championship title in 1991.
Greg Foster (center) and Renaldo Nehemiah (right) go head to head at the 55m hurdels in 1988. Foster would win, in 7.07.
1992: Overcoming back spasms, Marcus O’Sullivan wins the Wanamaker Mile for the fifth time. In other events, Millrose records take a beating: Mark Everett breaks Martin McGrady’s 22-year-old world record – the oldest on the books – in the 600-Yard Run with a time of 1:07.53, and Jackie Joyner-Kersee returns for the first time from the injury she sustained at the 1991 World Championships to set a meet record in the long jump. In another comeback, Gail Devers, having battled back from Graves Disease, wins the 60-meter hurdles in 7.93.
1993: The sprints and hurdles are surprisingly slow this year, for good reason: an investigation determines that the finish-line camera was moved after the meet had begun, so the races were 61.50 meters instead of 60. Times are later adjusted accordingly.
1994: For the second consecutive year, Eamonn Coghlan sets a masters record in winning the mile, this time in 4:04.55, but his victory is bittersweet: he had hoped to become the first man over the age of 40 to run a sub-4 minute mile. He did so a few weeks later at a meet in Boston. Meanwhile, Greg Foster comes out of retirement to win the hurdles at Millrose for the 10th time.
1995: Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Dennis Mitchell, Hassiba Boulmerka, Greg Foster and Marcus O’Sullivan all lose in a night of surprises. In perhaps the biggest shock of all, Sergey Bubka fails in three straight attempts at the routine height – for him, at least – of 19 feet, 0.25 inches, to finish second after no-heighting in 1986, his only previous appearance. “I was disappointed and embarrassed,” says Bubka afterward. “I wanted to do well in New York.”
1996: Sergey Bubka sets a meet record (19 feet, 2 25 inches) in winning the pole vault.
1997: An astounding 23 years after winning her first Millrose Games title, 38-year-old Mary Slaney wins the Mile in 4:26.67.
