Mark McKoy

Mark McKoy, track and field athlete (b at Georgetown, Guyana 10 Dec 1961). Mark McKoy emerged as a promising young track star in Toronto in the late 1970s while still a teenager. Displaying great speed, he specialized in the sprint hurdles and won his first of eight consecutive national championships in the 110 m hurdles in 1981. He quickly established himself as one of the finest hurdlers in the world, but had difficulty performing at his best in international meets. Ranked in the top three in the world in 1984, he finished a disappointing 4th at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

Mark McKoy continued to excel after the games, winning gold medals at the 1986 Commonwealth Games in the 110 m hurdles, and as a member of the 4x100 m relay team. At the 1987 World Track and Field Championships he once again finished out of the medals, and at the Olympic Games at Seoul in 1988 he finished 7th, and then left the games abruptly, refusing to participate in the relay following Ben Johnson's positive drug test. His departure resulted in a two-year suspension from competition. He later testified at the Dubin Inquiry that he had briefly experimented with steroids but that they had no effect on his performance.

Angry at Canadian track officials over his suspension, Mark McKoy trained in Wales and returned to competition in 1991. He finished 4th at the 1991 World Championships, and against expectations won the gold medal in the 110 m hurdles at the Olympic Games at Barcelona in 1992, Canada's first track and field gold medal in 60 years. McKoy married an Austrian athlete in 1993 and began competing internationally for Austria in 1994. Mark McKoy retired in 1996 and returned to Canada, where he established a speed training school in Mississauga.