A lot has changed for Clement since Helsinki

Clement has put distractions and disappointments behind him to dominate at this year's world track championships. Bill Frakes/SI

OSAKA, Japan -- Here is what the young man told his coach two years ago: I took care of myself. I'm fine. And so the coach let an ugly controversy drop. He pulled back and allowed the young man to grow and Tuesday night on a running track halfway around the world from home, Kerron Clement won the gold medal in the 400-meter hurdles at the world track and field championships.

Two years ago, at the rainswept world track and field championships in Helsinki, Clement was 19, so full of talent that he humbled his coach, a lifer who does not humble easily. "Phenomenal talent, I'm just happy somebody brought him to me," said Mike Holloway, the head coach at the University of Florida and still Clement's personal coach.

Clement had been a high school star in Texas, by way of his native Trinidad, and in the winter of 2005 he broke Michael Johnson's 10-year-old indoor record for the 400 meters, which is especially noteworthy because Clement's specialty involves running 400 meters over hurdles. He was that once-in-generation talent who can change a sport.

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He didn't change it in Helsinki. Clement ran a green semifinal that left him in the brutal inside lane for the final, and then slowed just before the finish, falling to fourth place. His braking cost him a bronze medal and the U.S. a sweep behind Bershawn Jackson (gold) and James Carter (silver). "If I had leaned, I probably would have gotten third," Clement said that night, his head shielded from the rain by a hooded USA windbreaker. "I guess I just wasn't thinking."

Sandra Farmer-Patrick, a USA Track and Field official whose job included giving flags to medalists to carry on their victory laps, gave one to Clement and told him to take the lap with Jackson and Carter, a sweet gesture that was also vaguely humiliating. Farmer-Patrick also expressed what nearly every track fan felt that night: "Fourth place for a average person wouldn't be bad. But for an exceptional talent like [Clement], we all expect more." Clement's fourth-place finish had closed a difficult virgin trip to the worlds.

Not long after the U.S. team arrived in Helsinki, several younger male members of the team -- Clement, Tyson Gay and Wallace Spearmon among them -- had been harassed by veterans. The only veteran who admitted to participating in the incident was John Capel, a sprinter who won the 2003 world championship in the 200 meters. Three media outlets identified two-time Olympic medalist Maurice Greene, but Greene was never named by any of the young athletes and never admitted to participating.

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