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World champion Greene predicts world record in Olympic final
SYDNEY, Sept 20 (AFP) - He is big, he is brash and he is ready to "let it hang real fast." Maurice Greene is already the world's fastest man, but he strutted his stuff confidently here on Wednesday, predicting he could run faster than his own 9.79sec world record in the 100 metres promising "A performance you will never forget." Greene runs in the 100 metres heats here on Friday morning, in the first session of athletics at the Olympic Games. Appearing at a press conference organised by his management group, Hudson Smith International, his Los Angeles-based coach, John Smith, predicted that sprinters from his group - Greene, Jon Drummond, Curtis Johnson and the Trinidadian, Ato Boldon - could fill the first four places in the 100m final on Saturday, one of the undoubted highlights of the Olympic Games. The HSI group made no secret of reports that Greene had run faster than his world record in training in Sydney last week. "What we run in practice doesn't matter," Greene said. The 26-year-old sprinter rejected a recent scientific paper that suggested that man could not get any faster. "You can't believe everything you read," Greene joked. "I like to prove people wrong." Greene's bravura performance in front of the world's massed media was a complete contrast to four years ago, when he openly wept in the stands after he watched the 100m final from the stands in Atlanta, after failing to make that year's United States Olympic team. "I've always watched the Olympics on TV, and even when I was young, I thought I could beat the other runners," Greene said. "That's my mentality." Greene admits he gets nervous before big events. "Sure I do. I just don't show it. "This is the biggest meet of my life. The Olympics is the biggest stage in the world. And the bigger the stage, the better I perform." Greene, world champion in 1997 and 1999 at 100m, has been staying in a private house in a plush Sydney suburb for the last week, visiting Bondi Beach, Darling Harbour and other tourist resorts in between training sessions. "The only problem is that Maurice has the master bedroom," Drummond chipped in, "and Ato has the whirlpool tub." Apart from the injury to HSI team mate Inger Miller, who confirmed Wednesday that she had withdrawn from the women's 100m through injury, the HSI group says that their training has been going exceptionally well. "All of us are in better shape and ready to run faster than ever before," Boldon offered. He described the group's ethos as "an atmosphere of winning". "Whoever wins the HSI race is going to win the Olympics," Boldon said. Greene was dismissive of most of his likely rivals, except those from his training group. The world champion laughed at suggestions that British sprinters Darren Campbell or Dwain Chambers - who have both beaten him twice this year - might repeat the feat in Sydney. "Do you really think so?" he asked a reporter. "Anything can happen in this race. I plan to take the first round as easy as possible, and then in the second, third and fourth rounds, I'll let it hang. And I'll let it hang real fast." Greene refused to be drawn into any discussion of the reigning Olympic champion, Canada's Donovan Bailey. "I consider anyone in the Olympic final as being in the final," he said. "But I can consider no other competitor other than myself." Expressing regret that he would not be able to run the 200m, another of his world title events, or race against American rival Michael Johnson, "because I like to give the public what they want", Greene seemed focused on his task in hand. "I'm going to win, that's what I'm going to do," Greene said. His rivalry with Boldon and Drummond would not harm their friendship, he said. "We're sharing a house together, aren't we?" "We separate who we are from what we do," Boldon said. "People ask us how we can compete against one another and stay friends, but isn't that what the Olympics are supposed to be about?" Throughout the knockabout press conference performance, sitting towards the back of the packed auditorium was Greene's father, Ernest. "He has always been like that," Greene senior said. And the father of the world's fastest man believes his son is ready for the biggest race of his life. "That is not an act for the media. But I'm glad he is like that. It shows he's relaxed and ready to go.
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