Griffith Joyner set world records in 1988 for the 100 m and 200 m. During the late 1980s, she became a popular figure due to both her record-setting athleticism and eclectic personal style.

[2][5] The family lived in Littlerock, California, before Florence Griffith moved with her children to the Jordan Downs public housing complex located in the Watts section of Los Angeles.

[6][7] When Griffith was in elementary school, she joined the Sugar Ray Robinson Organization, running in track meets on weekends.

[7] Showing an early interest in fashion, Griffith persuaded the members of the track team to wear tights with their uniforms.

[8] As a high school senior in 1978, she finished sixth at the CIF California State Meet behind future teammates Alice Brown and Pam Marshall.

[9] By the time she graduated from Jordan High School in 1978, she had set high-school records in sprinting and long jump.

[11][12] This team, which included Brown and Jeanette Bolden,[12][13][14] won the national championship during Griffith's first year of college.

[17] Griffith went on to win a silver medal in the 1984 Summer Olympics, coming in second behind teammate Valerie Brisco-Hooks.

[19] Griffith continued to run part-time,[19] winning the 100-meter IAAF Grand Prix Final with the time of 11.00 seconds.

[25] She ran the 100 meter in 10.96-seconds at the 1987 Cologne Grand Prix Track and Field Meet, a personal best but the mark was not even in the top 40 of all time.

[26][27] She continued to improve, again setting a personal best of 10.89 in the 100 meters in San Diego on June 25, 1988, but still remained shy of then American record holder Evelyn Ashford's three best times.

[8] Over the two-day trials, Griffith Joyner recorded the three fastest times for a woman at 100 meters: 10.49 in the quarter-final, 10.70 in the semifinal, and 10.61 in the final.

This extraordinary result raised the possibility of a technical malfunction with the wind gauge which read at 0.0 m/s - a reading at odds with the windy conditions on the day, with high wind speeds being recorded in all other sprints before and after this race as well as the parallel long jump runway at the time of the Griffith Joyner performance.

The IAAF has not annulled the result, but since 1997 the International Athletics Annual of the Association of Track and Field Statisticians has listed it as "probably strongly wind assisted, but recognized as a world record.

[35] Griffith Joyner's decision to sign with personal manager Gordon Baskin therefore necessitated the coaching change.

[25] By then known to the world as "Flo-Jo", Griffith Joyner was the big favorite for the titles in the sprint events at the 1988 Summer Olympics.

[10][39][40] The month after announcing her retirement, she was selected as the winner of the James E. Sullivan Award of 1988 as the top amateur athlete in the United States.

In 1992, she appeared in the soap opera Santa Barbara as "Terry Holloway", a photographer similar to Annie Leibovitz.

[19] In 1996, Griffith Joyner appeared on Charlie Rose and announced her comeback to competitive athletics, concentrating on the 400-meter run.

[30][46][22] The running suits had bold colors such as lime green and purple with white bikini bottoms and were embellished with lightning bolts.

[22] Although many sprinters avoided accessories which might slow them down, Griffith Joyner kept her hair long and wore jewelry while competing.

[47] Athletes, including Joaquim Cruz and Ben Johnson, expressed disbelief over Griffith Joyner's dramatic improvement over a short period of time.

[51] In a 1989 story for which he was purportedly paid $25,000,[52] Darrell Robinson, a former teammate of Griffith Joyner, claimed that he sold her 10 mL of growth hormone for $2,000 in 1988.

"[50] Robinson claimed to have received steroids from coach Bob Kersee and said he saw Carl Lewis inject himself with drugs he believed to be testosterone.

[54] After the 1988 Olympics, Griffith Joyner retired from competitive track and field, a year before the introduction of mandatory random drug testing in 1989.

[10][27] On September 21, 1998, Griffith Joyner died in her sleep at home in the Canyon Crest neighborhood of Mission Viejo, California, at the age of 38.

[55] Griffith Joyner was found to have had a cavernous hemangioma, a congenital vascular brain abnormality that made her subject to seizures.