The Most Coveted Title"World's Fastest Human" won't necessarily come out of the 100by Tim Layden
The man's voice rises with pride, and suddenly it is 1968 again and Jim Hines, a barrel-chested sprint gunslinger, is crossing the finish line first in the 100 meters at Mexico City. His time is 9.95 seconds, faster than any man had run the distance. He is the Olympic champion and something more. "Fastest man in the world," he barks now. "That's the ultimate, the most joyous feeling in my life. There's no money, no love, no marriage, no kids that can match that feeling."
Mitchell (left) & Co. are threatened by 200 king Johnson.
photograph by
The title is his for four years, and then it is passed to Valery Borzov of the Soviet Union and four years later from Borzov to Hasley Crawford of Trinidad. The rules are written nowhere, yet they are understood like the secret initiation rites to some exclusive fraternity: "Everybody knows the World's Fastest Human is the man who wins the Olympic 100 meters," says U.S. sprinter Jon Drummond, who covets that title himself. The succession continues every four years, and now the title resides with a glowering Briton who won in Barcelona and holds it in the pit of his soul. "The others want something I've got," says Linford Christie, now 36 years old. They want the crown. The title.
But even as we reach the eve of the men's 100-meter final, the centerpiece event of nearly every Olympic track and field competition, the title has been curiously and prematurely passed. Even as 126 men compete today at Olympic Stadium in the preliminary heats and quarterfinals of the 100 meters, the title they seek has been quietly usurped. What everybody knows is that U.S. sprinter Michael Johnson is the world's fastest human.
Johnson set a world record in the 200 meters at the U.S. Olympic Trials (19.66 seconds), and over the next six days he will attempt to become the first man to win the 200 and 400 at the same Games. If successful, he could submerge the high-strung sprinters of the 100 meters in his wake. For that reason they are respectful—"If I had that type of ability, I'd do the same thing," says Christie—but they are also protective of the territory that has been passed down to them since the modern Olympics began. "I don't think Michael has overshadowed us at all," says Christie. "The world's fastest man is open to interpretation isn't it? But the 100 meters is the blue-ribbon event of any track meet." Drummond, typically, goes one step further: "If Michael wants the title, tell him to step down to the 100, because I'd love to beat up on him."
Nice talk. Good quote. But the fact is, much as Johnson has pushed aside Carl Lewis as the most visible athlete in U.S. track and field, he also has become the most compelling sprinter in the world, in effect the fastest man on earth. Eight men will populate tomorrow night's final, and if form holds true, they will be the fastest grid of Olympians in history. Leroy Burrell's world record in the 100, 9.85, has stood for two years, but this year Namibia's Frankie Fredericks has run 9.86 (into a slight headwind) and 9.87. Ato Boldon of Trinidad and Tobago and U.S. trials winner Dennis Mitchell have both run 9.92, world champion Donovan Bailey of Canada has gone 9.93 and oft-overlooked Mike Marsh of the U.S. has gone 9.95. With this bunch running on the superfast Olympic Stadium track, Lewis's Olympic record of 9.92, set at the 1988 Seoul Games, seems in deep trouble. "I think it's going to take a world record, or better, in the final," says Mitchell.
But they race not just each other and the tiny fractions on the clock; they race their own flaws, trying to become great. Bailey is a superb athlete who is often overcome by his inconsistency. "Forget about Bailey," says one U.S. sprinter. Christie is a world and an Olympic champion who labored too long in Lewis's shadow and now fights age. Fredericks shuns the burning attention that is suddenly following him, calling into question his inner strength. Boldon is young, Mitchell is consistent but forever coming up short in the biggest of races.
None of them is promised the title that Hines so cherished seven Olympics ago, the same title that Harrison Dillard, the 100-meter gold medalist in 1948, has never forgotten. "Fastest man in the world," says Dillard. "Now, that's something that grabs people." Tomorrow's winner has a chance to run very fast. The track. The quality field. The moment. And he must be phenomenal, because an outsider has joined the club, and it will take more than victory to expel him.
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