For one American sprinter it was the street swagger that melted away, and for the other it was the uncommon composure of an ingenue turned queen that finally cracked. Of course, Maurice Greene and Marion Jones cried when they were finished, when the world championships were theirs, when the cork was at last popped from their bottled emotions.

For the 23-year-old Greene the moment came on Sunday night in the belly of Olympic Stadium in Athens, long after he had won the men's 100 meters at the World Championships. Greene had been a rock through two days and four rounds of brutal running, holding his youthful nerves together while battling on equal psychological terms with defending world and Olympic 100-meter champion Donovan Bailey of Canada, a master of the sprinter's mind game. Ultimately Greene beat Bailey to the gold medal in 9.86 seconds, equaling the third-fastest time in history. Earlier this year Greene had promised, with scant credentials, to restore U.S. sprinting to its rightful place in the world order, and he had promised further to break Bailey's world record of 9.84 (he nearly did it). He talked and walked.

Now, however, in the hallway outside an interview room, Greene fell into the arms of his father, Ernest, who had flown in two days earlier from Kansas City, Kans., through Memphis and Amsterdam to Athens (a frequent-flier jackpot), to watch the youngest of his and his wife Jackie's four children run on the grandest stage shy of the Olympics. Late last September, Ernest and Jackie had driven with their son from Kansas City to Los Angeles and delivered him to the doorstep of sprint coach John Smith, who would mastermind Maurice's swift transformation from the world's 24th-ranked 100-meter runner to its fastest. Remembering that trip, Maurice held his father tightly and sobbed until he let go and slumped into a nearby chair. As Smith stroked the back of his protege's head, Greene shed tears that fell on the concrete floor, and he repeated again and again, "I worked so hard, I worked so hard...."

For Jones, just 21, the cool veneer of a champion with many more medals in her future was peeled back ever so slightly when she walked off the track moments after she had won the women's 100 meters in 10.83 seconds. Her time was the best in the world this year and just .01 of a second slower than the lifetime bests of fellow Americans Gail Devers and Gwen Torrence, her predecessors as world champions in 1993 and '95, respectively. (Suffering from injuries, neither ran the 100 in Athens.) In the tunnel leading from the track, Jones found her fiance, U.S. shot-putter C.J. Hunter. "She started crying right away," said Hunter. "It was quick, though. It's Marion—she even cries fast."

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Together, and scarcely 20 minutes apart, Greene and Jones became the first man and woman from the U.S. to cross the finish line first in the 100 at a fully loaded international championship meet since Jim Hines and Wyomia Tyus at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. (Carl Lewis and Evelyn Ashford swept at the '84 Los Angeles Olympics but without Eastern bloc countries present; Lewis and Florence Griffith Joyner swept the golds at the '88 Seoul Games, but only after the drug disqualification of Canada's Ben Johnson, who crossed the finish line ahead of Lewis.)

While Devers and Torrence built a bridge from Flo-Jo to Jones, the decline of U.S. men's sprinting has been a front-burner topic in track since the early '90s. Greene's gold in Athens was the first for an American male in a major-championship 100 since Lewis won the 1991 Worlds in Tokyo. Behind Greene and Bailey (9.91), Tim Montgomery of the U.S. took the bronze medal in 9.94, beating two-time Olympic 100-meter silver medalist Frank Fredericks of Namibia and adding even more historical weight to the evening.

That Greene may now claim the fragile title of World's Fastest Human was unthinkable barely a year ago, when, hampered by a pulled hamstring, he flamed out in the second round of the Olympic trials. He signed on with Smith, who is known for developing young sprinters, and has since melded smoothly into Smith's HSI, the club that also includes Sunday's prerace favorite, Ato Boldon of Trinidad, and U.S. 200-meter champion Jon Drummond. Greene announced himself formally when he won the national 100 championship at Indianapolis in June, running 9.90, or .18 of a second faster than his previous best. At dinner that night Boldon declared, "Maurice and I are going one-two in the Worlds." To which Greene replied, "Be sure not to let anyone [else] beat you."

Boldon and Greene were separated by just a thin wall in their beach hotel near Athens and by even less than that in a second-round heat last Saturday night. Boldon ran 9.87, equaling the fourth-fastest time in history, while Greene nearly caught him in 9.90. In another race during that same round, Bailey ran 10.10 and limped off the track. Speculation went off the charts: Is Donovan hurt? Is Donovan sandbagging?

After Boldon won Sunday's first semifinal in 10 flat, Greene nipped a much sharper Bailey in the second, 9.90 to 9.91. As they approached the finish line with Greene slightly ahead, Bailey eyeballed Greene, who glared back. After Bailey ran off the track, he shouted at Greene, "I'm back! I'm back!" Greene woofed at Bailey, "Yeah? I gotcha! I gotcha!" It appeared that with the final looming, Bailey had worked his psychological game perfectly, finding his own form and a weak spot in Greene's psyche. "Not true," said Greene later. "Donovan never got into my head."

For the final, Greene drew lane 3, next to Bailey in 4. Boldon was in 6, but racked by prerace cramps, he would never be a factor, finishing fifth. At the gun Greene came away first and had daylight on Bailey at 50 meters, precisely where Bailey had exploded to win the '95 Worlds and the '96 Olympics. Bailey made his move again here, but with less pop, and Greene stayed clear. "We hit 75 meters, and I knew he wasn't going to get me," said Greene afterward. At the finish, in the ultimate display of youthful exuberance, he turned his head and stuck his tongue out at Bailey.

Greene's work in Athens isn't finished. This Sunday, if all goes as planned, he will run anchor for the U.S. in the 4x100-meter relay, an event in which—this might sound vaguely familiar—the Americans haven't won a major gold since the '93 Worlds. Bailey is Canada's anchor; Greene gets an early lesson in life at the top.

That is a lesson Jones could probably teach, such is her maturity. Five months ago the former high school track prodigy was a point guard for the North Carolina basketball team. In the time since, she has not only rediscovered her talent and passion for track and field but also navigated the minefield of sudden fame with arresting grace. Last Saturday before the second round of the women's 100, a scheduling snafu delayed the heats by nearly an hour. Afterward, U.S. Olympic veterans Chryste Gaines and Inger Miller complained. Jones? No problem. "There's always chaos at big meets," she said. "Whoever handles the chaos wins."

In Sunday night's final, 37-year-old Merlene Ottey of Jamaica, a four-time silver medalist at the Worlds, failed to hear the second starter's gunshot, signaling a false start, and ran 60 meters alone. While Ottey took nearly three agonizing minutes to return to the line, Jones bounced coolly in her lane. After the restart Jones willed her decelerating body across the line in front of fast-closing Zhanna Pintusevich of Ukraine. As Pintusevich wildly celebrated what she thought was her upset victory for a pack of photographers, Jones calmly walked around the finish curve, certain she had won. Only when the result was made official did she exult and run back down the home straightaway.

Jones also has more to do in Athens. This Saturday she will compete in the long jump and run the second leg in the 4Å100 relay. Devers will anchor; Jones hasn't complained. All this is only the beginning. She dreams of winning—nay, plans to win—four gold medals at the '99 Worlds in Seville, Spain, adding the 200 meters, in which she has run a world-best 22.16 this year and which she easily could have won in Athens had she entered the event. Then she wants to win five (this time adding the 4x400 relay) at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Along the way she will attack Flo-Jo's world records for the 100 (10.49) and the 200 (21.34) as well as the long jump mark (24'81/4"), set in 1988 by Galina Chistyakova of the U.S.S.R. Just for kicks, next spring she will enter a 400 meters. "I want to run very, very fast, and I want to jump very, very far," says Jones.

Smart enough to recognize an emerging franchise, USA Track & Field chief executive officer Craig Masback arranged for a private car late Sunday night to whisk Jones and her small crew (Hunter, coach Trevor Graham and agent Charlie Wells) to their hotel. But first Jones stood in the light outside the stadium and pondered her fast climb and new fame. "When I started the European circuit this summer, it seemed so crazy, just being over here," she said. Then it all became clear to her, as she fingered the gold medal hanging from her slender neck. "As long as you're running fast," she said, "life is good."