|
 |   |
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|  |
Greene in race against history for Olympic 100-metre gold
SYDNEY, Sept 21 (AFP) - Maurice Greene, the world's fastest man, will have to beat more than just his rivals in his quest for the Olympic gold medal in the men's 100 metres, which gets underway here with first-round heats on Friday. Greene knows he has to overcome history to deliver the Blue Riband of the Games to the United States for the first time in 12 years. "Winning the Olympic 100 metres will mean a lot for me. But it will also mean a lot in America, and it will mean a lot for track and field in America, too," Greene said. For while sprinting is perceived to be an event dominated by United States athletes, only once since 1968 has an American been first across the finish line in the Olympic 100m final. Since Jim Hines took just 9.95sec in Mexico City's thin air to reach the finish 32 years ago, Carl Lewis is the sole American to have placed first, at Los Angeles in 1984. Four years later, Lewis also took gold, of course, after the Canadian, Ben Johnson, was stripped of his medal following the most infamous doping bust in sporting history. So while Greene is widely expected to win in Saturday night's final, and perhaps even improve on his own world record of 9.79sec - equal to the now-erased time Johnson ran in Seoul, history shows that the odds are stacked against him. For various reasons, the likes of Valeriy Borzov (Soviet Union - 1972), Hasely Crawford (Trinidad and Tobago - 1976), Allan Wells, Linford Christie (both Great Britain, 1980 and 1992 respectively) and, four years ago, Donovan Bailey (Canada - 1996), have managed to beat the best the Americans could offer to nail the myth of American sprinting supremecy. Success by Greene in such a high-profile event may be just what athletics in the United States needs to wake it from its slumber. As the fastest man this year, following his 9.86sec in Berlin at the beginning of the month, Greene is seen as an obvious favourite. The Los Angeles-based 26-year-old is brimming with confidence, driving around Sydney in a banana-yellow Ferrari that matches his passion for speed on the track, which has seen him reportedly running sub-10sec in training this week. "I'm going to win. This is the biggest stage you can be on and I say the bigger the stage, the better I perform," Greene asserts. But the lesson of history points towards his training partner and housemate in the Sydney suburb of Coogee, Trinidad and Tobago's Ato Boldon. Four times in the last six Olympics, the first man across the 100-metre finish line has been Caribbean-born. Crawford won for Trinidad in Montreal, 1976 and in the last three Olympic finals a man born in Jamaica has crossed the line first. Johnson, running for Canada, started that trend with his now infamous run in 1988, followed by Christie four years later before Bailey finally won a legal gold in Sydney for the Canadian team. Boldon will be seeking to emulate his country's last gold medallist, Crawford, the 1976 100m champion. Asked what he thinks his island nation might give him were he to win Olympic gold, Boldon answers unhesitatingly: "Tobago". There are, of course, other contenders for the prize. Canada's challenge this time seems likely to be led by Bruny Surin, runner-up at last year's World Championships. Surin, for the record, was born in Haiti. Bailey, after a two-year battle to recover from a career-threatening Achilles tendon injury, has been struck down with 'flu in the final days before his event. Other likely contenders include Obadele Thompson, of Barbados, if he can overcome a late, niggling injury, and any one of three young Britons, headed by world bronze medallist Dwain Chambers. But it is Greene who is the overwhelming favourite, provided he can also withstand then ultimate test of nerve. "I don't have to beat Maurice," Boldon says, playing the mind game, "he has to beat me.
|
