gladwell dot com--Drugstore Athlete It is hard to believe, for instance, that the sprinter Florence Griffith Joyner, the star of the Seoul games, was clean. Before 1988, her best times in the hundred metres and the two hundred metres were, respectively, 10.96 and 21.96. In 1988, a suddenly huskier FloJo ran 10.49 and 21.34, times that no runner since has even come close to equalling. In other words, at the age of twenty-eight--when most athletes are beginning their decline--Griffith Joyner transformed herself in one season from a career-long better-than-average sprinter to the fastest female sprinter in history.