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Lion Queen set to bid farewell to athletics circus
SYDNEY, Sept 24 (AFP) - Jamaican sprinting legend Merlene Ottey set the seal on her epic 20-year Olympic individual career here on Saturday with an impressive fourth place in the 100 metres - and next Saturday she hopes to bid farewell to her massive fan club with a 4x100 metres relay medal. The 40-year-old, who looked as if she might have to run the relay on her own when half of the athletics team protested over her replacing national champion Peta-Gay Dowdie in the individual event, admitted that while she would run in a couple of meetings next year for her the championship stage was over. "I realised here that I cannot take four rounds in two days there are limits to what you can put your body through," she said. "I will race on the circuit occasionally next year but it is time for me to hand the baton of Jamaican sprinting over to Tanya Lawrence (bronze medallist in the 100)," she added. The athlete, dubbed the Lion Queen because of her wonderfully arrogant prowl back to the start of the 1997 100 metres world championship final after she had run 60 metres following a false start, said she felt proud of how she had performed at this her sixth Olympics - her first was at Moscow in 1980. "I believe that I proved a point to a lot of people including some in Jamaica who didn't think I would even make the final," she said. "Okay I didn't get a medal but I think finishing fourth isn't bad for a 40-year-old!" added Ottey, who won seven Olympic medals including two silvers. Ottey, who has won 34 major championship medals including two world championship 200m titles, was also delighted that she had not left athletics under a cloud having been cleared because of lack of evidence that she tested positive for nandrolone last year. "I would never have felt comfortable walking down the street with that black mark attached to my reputation," she said. "I still feel that I have been shabbily treated by the authorities, who knows what I could have done here if I had had the right amount of time to prepare, but at least I have got my reputation back," she added. However, while several members of the sports ruling body - including the president Lamine Diack - the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) remain convinced that she shouldn't have been exonerated, one of her closest confidants said that there was one very good argument against her ever taking drugs. "Merlene has always wanted to have a child," he said. "She saw what happened to the Canadian sprinter Angela Issajenko-Bailey (part of the Charlie Francis camp that included disgraced 100 metres sprinter Ben Johnson) and her baby," the aide said. "She took two courses of steroids but on the second occasion she couldn't understand why she wasn't improving on the track only to discover she was pregnant. "Sadly the child is in and out of hospital incessantly and Angela blames that on taking steroids," he added. Whatever the ins and outs of it Ottey will remain a true sprinting great - bereft of Olympic individual gold maybe but very much the pride of Jamaica.
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