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Perec arrives in Sydney
SYDNEY, Sept 8 (AFP) - France's triple Olympic champion Marie-Jose Perec answered her critics here Friday when she arrived in her bid to achieve a fourth Olympic gold at the Sydney Games, journalists at the airport said. There had been doubt whether the unpredictable 32-year-old athlete, who completed the 200-400m double in Atlanta four years ago, would even turn up in Sydney. Perec, who also won the 400m in Barcelona in 1992, has has been racked by injury having been diagnosed shortly after the 1996 Games with the strength-sapping Epstein-Barr syndrome and has barely raced since her outstanding double. But the Guadeloupe-born Perec, nicknamed the 'Gazelle', gave her answer at 6.15am on Friday morning when she arrived in Sydney airport. She took one look at the small media contingent, stopping only to pull down the hood of a television camera, before bolting through the airport doors jumping into a waiting taxi. Perec's form this year has been the centre of much speculation after the Olympic champion shunned the European season. Her main rival is expected to be Australian Cathy Freeman, who has recorded the fastest 400m time of this year, although it was over a second slower than Perec's Atlanta gold medal winning run of 48.25 seconds. Two-time world champion Freeman was just beaten by Perec for the 400m Olympic gold four years ago.
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