Career
He trained at the University of Houston, like Carl Lewis before him. During his career, DeLoach only took part in one Olympiad, the 1988 Summer Olympics. The first performance was enough to qualify for the Games.
There, he and Lewis were the major favourites.
Lewis was looking to repeat his four gold medals from the Los Angeles Olympics. In the final, Lewis seemed heading for the title three-quarters of the way, but DeLoach caught up and finished in the Olympic record time of 19.75.
This performance marked the only time Carl Lewis was defeated in an individual Olympic final. After the Olympics, DeLoach failed to reach his 1988 level again, and after missing the 1992 Summer Olympics due to injury, he retired from sports.
In 2003, Doctor Wade Exum, the United States Olympic Committee"s director of drug control administration from 1991 to 2000, gave copies of documents to Sports Illustrated which revealed that some 100 American athletes who failed drug tests and should have been prevented from competing in the Olympics were nevertheless cleared to compete.
Among those athletes was DeLoach.