|
 |   |
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|  |
Boldon looking to be an A Grade Olympic student
= = SYDNEY, Sept 13 (AFP) - Trinidad's 1997 world 200 metres champion Ato Boldon compared his season to being like at school and said that that he hoped to pass his 100 metres and 200 metres exams at the Olympics with an A grade pass. The urbane 26-year-old, who won two bronze medals in the 100m and 200m at the 1996 Olympics, also denied suggestions that he would underperform in the 100m so he could fulfil his favourite's tag in the 200m. "It's critical in sprinting to be confident," he said. "I see the season as being like at school and now we are approaching the final exams in which hopefully I will get an A grade. "Why the school reference? Because I am the thinking man's sprinter .... although that sounds like an oxymoron!" he added. Boldon, who left Trinidad with his mother at the age of 16 to live in New York before moving on to Los Angeles, claimed that he was not worried about his moderate form this season as others had consistently failed to perform up to their usual standards. "I have had a really up and down season but then none of us have really run the times from last year," he said. "I think that is because a lot of sprinters have been saving themselves for this one and it could be explosive. "From my own perspective it's more that I had a long stint in Europe and really wanted to get back home where I could sleep in my own bed and eat the food I wanted to," he added. Boldon, who gave up a promising career in football to set his sights on athletics Olympic glory, also said that he did not pity stablemate Maurice Greene, who will be competing in his first Olympics, going into the 100m as the favourite. "It didn't do Leroy Burrell or Frankie Fredricks any favours in 1992 and 1996 so being favourite is a poisoned chalice," he said. Boldon, who ran last in his final 100 metres prior to coming to Australia, drew on his experience in Kuala Lumpur at the 1998 Commonwealth Games to give himself a boost ahead of the first round heats that start on September 22. "I take great heart from the fact that I won the 1998 Commonwealth Games 100m title in Kuala Lumpur in September and ran a really fast time," he added. Boldon, who refused to kick a football around saying that his coach John Smith had forbidden him to touch one till after the Games, also dismissed claims that he would hold back a bit in the 100m so he could fulfil his favourite's tag in the 200m. "I don't even believe that I am the favourite for the 200 (following Michael Johnson and Greene's blowouts in the US trials) but I certainly won't be throwing the 100 so I can preserve all my energy for the 200," he said. Boldon, who said that he relies on the advice of compatriot Hasely Crawford the last Trindadian to win Olympic track gold in the 100m in Montreal in 1976, cuts a much calmer figure these days than the one who exploded with rage after running third behind Donovan Bailey in Atlanta in 1996. There he blamed the now disgraced former Olympic and world champion Linford Christie for putting him off after Christie refused to step off the track having been disqualified for two false starts. "I made it up with him after three days," Boldon said. "Now I realise that I was basically a University star (he was world junior champion at 100 and 200 in 1992) in with a chance of Olympic gold and I blew it," he added. This time around Boldon cannot afford to blow it because on it rests even at his youngish age probably the last chance to really stamp his mark on a sport he has graced with a faster brain and mouth than his legs really are once involved in the heat of the battle.
|
