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By Mark Starr
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Track and field may have long ago lost its hold on the American audience: we may have largely forgotten the pole vaulters, shot putters, high jumpers and hurdlers who have honored the red, white and blue. But even today, our sprint kings and queens retain extraordinary luster. America's 100-meter men and women--from Jesse Owens to "Bullet" Bob Hayes to Carl Lewis, from Wilma Rudolph to FloJo to Marion Jones--are still accorded their rightful places in the pantheon of American athletes.
There are only three dash crowns that resonate with the typical American fan. The first is Olympic champion, and it trumps all the others. The second is "world's fastest human" (or woman), the title accorded the current world record holder, Tim Montgomery. And the third is world champion--a biennial title that has more meaning when it comes at the meet that marks the year run up to the next Olympics.
It was that third title that was to be settled this week at track and field's biennial world championships, held this year in Paris almost a year to the day before the 2004 Olympics open in Athens. And it was the men who warranted almost all the attention. With Marion Jones on maternity leave with her newborn son (next year she'll resume her Olympic quest), the women's 100 figured to be anticlimactic. Kudos to the winner--Kelli White--but everybody figured she would be a pretender till she beats the reigning Olympic and world champion head-on.
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But the men's 100--at least on paper--had all the makings of a standout heavyweight fight. For the first time all year, the two men who have ruled the event in recent years were ready to resume their duel. One was Maurice Greene, 29, the reigning Olympic champion and winner of the last three world championships. The other was Montgomery, 28, who lacks Greene's pedestal pedigree, but who appeared to come of age in 2002 when he ran a 9.78 to claim Greene's world record by .01 second and then whipped him in three straight races.
In June at the national championships, the two men faced off for the first time all year. Unfortunately, it was not on the track, only near the track at the press conference before the national championship. Greene, as defending world champion, didn't have to race to qualify for the world championships, so his only shot at Montgomery was verbal. Sprinters can at times make your typical boxing champion seem self-effacing--and Greene talks enough trash for any two. "He's run a fast time, but he hasn't won any titles," Greene said of his rival.
In truth, the two men hadn't won any sort of titles in a while. The year's been tough for both of them. Greene, with nagging injuries, has barely raced at all. Montgomery has also appeared out of sorts, as well as out of shape. He got himself caught up in a mini-scandal when he started working with a Canadian coach once banned for his involvement in the Ben Johnson doping scandal. Montgomery then coached himself before, finally, finding a respectable coach. But he was distracted from his preparations by the birth of his son with Marion Jones. In the national finals, he stumbled out of the blocks and had to call on all his experience to rally and claim second and his ticket to the worlds.
Which brings us to this week. There would be no ducking each other any longer for Montgomery and Greene. But before they got that chance, they were upstaged on Sunday by a teammate, Jon Drummond, who had shared gold medals with them at the Sydney Olympics in 4 x 100 relay. Drummond was disqualified from his quarterfinal heat after an electronic sensor detected a false start that wasn't remotely visible to the eye. Drummond, insisting he hadn't moved and--according to another sprinter, using the F word to drive home his point--simply refused to leave the track, prostrating himself in his lane as an official held a red flag over his body. For all the supposed anti-Americanism among the French these days, the crowd rallied on Drummond's side, cheering his clown act (remember these are probably the children of Jerry Lewis fans) and jeering the officials.
For all Drummond's understandable tears, his defiance was an act of extraordinary selfishness; it delayed for more than 20 minutes three 100-meter heats still to be run and complicated the warm-ups for his increasingly antsy competitors. Drummond's antics were the big story in the Paris papers the next day, sadly overshadowing the gold medal victory in the women's 100 by first-time U.S. champ 26-year-old Kelli White. (The woman sprinters eschew the buffoonery and emotional pyrotechnics of their male counterparts. In victory White was classy and gracious, refusing to proclaim her triumph any more than it was or to declare herself a rival for Marion Jones. "Marion has achieved so much," White said. "I have a lot to do to get where she is.")
White has a great future. But it turns out that all Greene and Montgomery may now share is a great past. The two Americans never even got to race each other in Paris. The two had run respectably in the early heats but drew opposite semifinals. Out of the blocks, Greene says he felt "a pop" in his quad and staggered home next to last in a glacial 10.37, failing to qualify for the finals. Montgomery did reach the finals and that elusive first major title was certainly there for the taking. It went instead to Kim Collins, a perennial also-ran from tiny St. Kitts and Nevis, whose winning time of 10.07 was the slowest in 20 years. Montgomery, "the world's fastest human," came home in a pedestrian 10.14, behind the St. Kittsman, a Trinidadian and two Brits.
It would not prove to be a great meet for any of the American veterans. Gail Devers, 36, who has two Olympic gold medals in the 100 and three world championships in the 100-meter hurdles, finished eighth and last in the dash and failed even to make the hurdles finals. Stacy Dragila, 32, reigning Olympic and world champion, tied for fourth in the pole vault. Both vowed to be back and better in the Olympic season next year.
Greene and Montgomery weren't saying much. Both were out of this weekend's 4 x 100 relay, Greene with his injury and Montgomery because he unexpectedly--and without explanation--skipped out of Paris and went home. Their performances led to the inescapable conclusion that one year out from Athens, the position of American sprint king is now open. Alarmingly so.
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