Globe Runner blog

Where a championship will always score over a one-off event, no matter how well hyped the latter may be, is in how the level of expectation is racked up by the succession of heats, rounds or qualifiers, with precarious favourites, sudden contenders, and surprise outsiders streaking into the frame for the final.

That expectation has already begun to build with the first major national trials held this past weekend, and selection of the leading personnel for the World Champs in Berlin in mid-August. That those trials were the US and Jamaican ones immediately puts the sprints into the spotlight. And with the Jamaicans having so comprehensively outgunned the Americans in Beijing, with Usain Bolt taking the starring role, the return of Tyson Gay (injured in Beijing) to superlative form in the last month suggests that Bolt, if not the whole Jamaican squad may have a battle-royal on their hands in the German capital in just over two months time.

Gay is reigning world champion at both 100 and 200 metres, having disposed of Bolt in the latter event, 19.76sec to 19.91sec in Osaka two years ago. As champion, Gay has an automatic ticket to Berlin, but he chose to run the first heat of the US champs in Eugene last Friday, and recorded a windy 9.75sec (+3.4mps). Bolt leads the legal times, with his 9.86sec victory in Kingston on Saturday (9.77sec, with +2.1mps in Ostrava two weeks ago), while new US champ, Michael Rodgers ran 9.94sec at the Prefontaine Meet, also in Eugene three weeks ago.

On the 200 metres front, Gay’s 19.58sec in New York a month ago is the clear leader, and the third fastest of all-time, behind Bolt’s 19.30sec WR from Beijing, and Michael Johnson’s former record 19.32sec from Atlanta 1996.

In one of his more quotable, ie serious utterances since winning in Bejing, Bolt said of Gay on Sunday, “I think Tyson is more of a 200 metres runner, not a 100 metres runner”. Well, that’s what we used to say about Bolt himself, until he broke the 100 WR a couple of times last year, and took the Olympic title at a canter. That’s also how Bolt won the Jamaican 200 title on Sunday, in 20.25sec into a headwind.

It’s reasonable to expect Bolt’s first serious Grand Prix 200 in Lausanne next Tuesday will produce something closer to Gay’s world leading time, and that will rack the expectation up another notch or two well before Berlin.

But for all that, it still has a way to go before it reaches the levels of Coe and Ovett in Moscow 1980, and Johnson and Lewis in Seoul 1988. The all-British clash was of course at 800 and 1500 metres, and for those of us who love that sort of thing - prologue, exposition (of tactics), drama, and denouement - there is nothing more entrancing. But even I have to admit, ten seconds of blazing witless energy also has its wealth of attraction and excitement.

No matter that it was an event that is steeped in infamy, the build-up to the Seoul 100 metres final was almost without precedent. Lewis v Johnson had it all. Despite his manifest talent, elegance and will to win, Lewis had failed to endear himself to the majority of track fans. And when Johnson appeared on the scene with all the subtlety of a bull with a bad headache, he got a lot more support than he otherwise might have done, especially since there was already strong suspicion of something other than the occasional can of Moosehead to propel him down the track.

Nevertheless, after his world record victory (9.83sec) in the world champs in Rome the previous year, BenJo started the season as favourite. But then injury and defeat in Zurich, followed by disappearance (to stoke up, as we now know) all combined to put the Canadian’s quest for Olympic glory into jeopardy.

He nearly got eliminated in the second round in Seoul (only going through to the semis as a fastest loser), and when running slower than Lewis, albeit winning his semi, the writing look on the wall for Big Bad Ben. In fact, track afionados noted that while Lewis had won his semi in 9.97sec with a tailwind, Johnson had clocked 10.03sec into a headwind, and thus run intrinsically faster.

The suspense as they went to their blocks was almost palpable.

You know the rest, except that when I got a ride back to the press centre with Tony Duffy, the British photographer who started the All-Sport Agency (now Getty Pictures) with his famous shot of Beamon’s arial ballet in Mexico 1968, he told me that the 100 final had probably been the most photographed event in world history, on a second by second basis.  He reckoned that a hundred or so snappers with at least two cameras each - given that many were already automatic by then - would have taken thousands of exposures of BenJo’s world record ‘victory’.

And whatever you think of this in retrospect, it is still the most exciting sprint I’ve ever seen. Because it was a throughly hyped contest between such contrasting characters, with expectation built sky-high through the 40 hours of competition; and prior to his expulsion, only the most unreconstructed US patriot would have denied Johnson his moments of glory.

Which is more or less what it turned out to be. Less than a day later the rumours were circulating quietly. One Canadian insider admitted he came to listen to our conversations in the stadium the following day, and when he didn’t hear us talking about the possibility of Johnson’s positive, he decided not to mention it!!!

Another couple of days later, the legend scrawled on the wall of the Canadian quarters in the Olympic village told the sad story, ‘From Hero to Zero in 9.79sec!’

Which is not to suggest that anything like this might happen in Berlin in 10 weeks’ time, just that we may get another head-to-head that will take our sport back to the heights it enjoyed in the mid-1980s.

And, of course it won’t be the only one. After her shock defeat by Tia Hellebaut in Beijing, Blanka Vlasic must have thought that with the Belgian’s pregnancy, her path to another world gold would be untrammelled. But Vlasic, who has dominated the women’s high jump for five years, and looked the woman most likely to break Stefka Kostadinova’s 22 year old world record 2.09 metres, now finds herself ousted from the top of the lists by Ariane Friedrich of Germany, who beat the Croat with a national record 2.06 metres in the Golden League two weeks ago, in the same Berlin stadium which is to host the world champs. And Friedrich went close at 2.09 metres too.

Another prospective tantaliser is the men’s 5000 metres. As one of those unknown outsiders, Eliud Kipchoge shocked the immortal Hicham El Guerrouj, the world record holder Kenenisa Bekele, and the rest of the planet when he won the world title in Paris 2003.

I thought it was a mistake for Kipchoge to stay with the same management group as Bekele thereafter. No slur on the Jos Hermens group, but when one of your main rivals is in the same camp, you feel that there is bound to be some priority somewhere. And it might not be you.

Kipchoge got relegated to third of the same trio at the Athens Games the following year; and although he got silver in both Oska and Beijing - edged by Bernard Lagat in the former, and comprehensively beaten by Bekele in the latter - he has not run as well as in Paris. Until now.

Kipchoge dominated a superlative field in Doha in late May, to win the 3000 metres in 7.28.37, and won the 5000 metres in Milano last week in 12.56.46, both world leads. That suggests that he might, just might give Bekele, who won the first Golden League 5000 metres in Berlin, in 13.00.76 a closer run for gold back in the German capital in mid-August.

By the time that rolls around, there will of course be many more cliff-hangers to enjoy.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 11:40 am and is filed under Archive. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.