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Running Amok The best-laid plans of some of track's best performers blew up in Sydney, and the reasons weren't always easily explainedBy Tim Layden Issue date: October 9, 2000
She knows better. Every Olympian knows better now. The Games make a mockery of blueprints and dreams; they promise nothing. "You could write books about people who made it to the Olympics but then something happened," said sprinter Ato Boldon of Trinidad and Tobago, who took bronze and silver medals in his third Games. Something happened to Marion Jones. After spending more than two years preparing to win an unprecedented five gold medals in Sydney, she found that her reach exceeded her grasp. Something happened to the U.S. men's 4x100-meter relay team. After winning the gold medal, it made good on anchorman Maurice Greene's promise to "put on a show," turning Olympic stadium into WWF SmackDown!, with an over-the-top celebration that drew whistles from the self-effacing Australian hosts and rebukes from some U.S. teammates. Something happened to milers Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco and Suzy Favor Hamilton of the U.S. Either could have won a 1,500 meters, but neither did. Something happened to U.S. 200-meter champion John Capel, one of the gold medal favorites, who was left standing, literally, in the blocks. "Olympic Games, we never know who will win," said decathlon world-record holder Tomas Dvorak of the Czech Republic, who competed with a torn abdominal muscle and finished sixth. We knew the 24-year-old Jones would win gold medals, but we didn't know how many. In the spring of 1998 she raised the bar on her aspirations by predicting that she would win five Olympic golds. No woman had attempted as much in a single Games. Under ideal conditions her task would have been difficult, and conditions for Jones in Sydney were less than ideal. Two days after Jones won her first event, the 100 meters, on the middle Saturday of the Games, International Amateur Athletic Federation officials announced that her husband, U.S. shot-putter C.J. Hunter, who had withdrawn from the Olympics on Sept. 11 with a knee injury, had tested positive for a steroid following a meet in July. That disclosure cast a 330-pound shadow over Jones's quest. She answered with a consummate, almost regal calm. She and Hunter never went into seclusion and never asked for additional security. When the public-address announcer said at the start of last Thursday's 200-meter final that Jones was from the Bahamas, she laughed. Shortly thereafter she cruised to her second gold in a time of 21.84 seconds and by a margin of .43 of a second, the biggest margin since Wilma Rudolph's victory in 1960. Asked about the effects of l'affaire C.J. on her performance, Jones said, "I didn't come here to let one event ruin things." In fact, one individual event did ruin her plans, and it came as no surprise. On Friday night Jones got a bronze medal in the long jump, finishing behind 35-year-old Heike Drechsler of Germany and Fiona May, 30, of Italy. Jones made six jumps, fouling on four of them, and produced a leap of 22'8 1/2", nearly three inches short of Drechsler's winning effort and four inches under her season's best. It was a typical long jump competition for Jones, who had a succession of chop-step takeoffs and jarring landings, and got off a tantalizing jump on her last attempt. "It was seven meters, 45 centimeters [24'5 1/2" inches], at least," said German jumps coach Wolfgang Killing. However, it was an obvious foul by half the length of Jones's foot. "Had to go for it," she said. Actually, she had hoped to luck into a gold medal. With her lack of technique, she can't find the takeoff board consistently without slowing to look for it. "She's too fast and too competitive," says her coach, Trevor Graham, who, backed by Jones and Hunter, has refused to hire a long jump adviser for her. Of her five events, Jones had the least control over the two relays. Gail Devers and Inger Miller each fell out of the 4x100 with an injured hamstring, prompting talk among the media and fans that their absences were drug-related. (Both women strongly denied it.) Jones was left on the 4x100 with Olympic veteran Chryste Gaines and Olympic rookies Torri Edwards and Nanceen Perry, a collection that even Gaines called "a B team." With slick passes they might have given Jones a shot at running down the defending world champions from the Bahamas. "But we didn't practice [as a foursome] until just before the race," said Gaines, who ran leadoff. Predictably, two of the team's three baton passes -- Edwards to Perry and Perry to Jones -- were horrible, and Jones had to torch the straightaway just to get a bronze behind the Bahamas and Jamaica, respectively. Less than two hours later came the 4x400, but in that relay Jones was asked to run the third leg, a clever strategic maneuver by coach Karen Dennis because it pitted Jones against runners who are slower than most anchors. She blazed through a brilliant 49.4 split, opening a 20-meter lead on Jamaica and essentially locking up her third gold, to go with two bronzes. Those prone to belittle her for not achieving an otherworldly goal should acknowledge one fact: No woman before Jones had won five medals in track and field in a single Olympic Games. Greene got two golds but made far more noise after bringing home the 4x100 relay team to an easy victory than he had after winning the 100 meters a week earlier. Following more than a month of bickering among the sprinters and their coaches over who would run, and after the sprinters ultimately dictated who would take part in the final, it was a formality for Jon Drummond, Bernard Williams, Brian Lewis and Greene to get the stick around the track in 37.61 seconds for their win over Brazil. Afterward the four U.S. runners spent 20 minutes circling the floor of the stadium, using U.S. flags as capes, turbans and veils, pulling the tops of their unitards down to their waists and, in Williams's case, embarking on a one-man tribute to professional wrestler the Rock. The group's antics were silly and juvenile, if harmless, and the crowd booed and whistled. Later, U.S. 400-meter runner Antonio Pettigrew scolded the sprinters. "I'd like to tell Bernard Williams to sometimes not live in the moment," he said. "Always remember you're representing the U.S.A. for all the world to see." Perry spoke more strongly, saying, "Foreigners think [Americans] are rude, anyway. This just confirms what they think of us." Confronted with the criticism, Drummond and Greene backpedaled. "I take responsibility," Drummond, 32, said. "I never won a gold medal before, and I got emotional." Lewis was less contrite. "The Australians didn't want us to win," he said. "That's O.K. We're happy." Favor Hamilton had been content for months leading to the women's 1,500. After missing all of 1999 following Achilles tendon surgery, she had dedicated her performances to the memory of her brother, Dan, who committed suicide last fall. She had also restructured her training to include more distance work. After finishing second to Regina Jacobs in the U.S. trials in July (Jacobs dropped out of the Games in August, citing a respiratory ailment), Favor Hamilton ran 3:57.40 at the July 28 Bislett Games in Oslo, the fastest time in the world this year. Only two weeks before the Games, Favor Hamilton ran a sensational 4:23 mile in a training run on a bike trail near her home in New Glarus, Wis. Her coach, Peter Tegen, pedaled alongside Favor Hamilton on a bicycle, and as she accelerated, told her she was going too fast. "No, I'm not!" she shouted back at him. At 32, Favor Hamilton felt that she was in the best condition of her life, physically and emotionally. All this makes what happened in the 1,500 final inexplicable. Favor Hamilton went to the front with slightly less than two laps to go, off a slow pace (70 seconds at 400 meters, 2:15 at 800), and began pushing. It was a strange race, with odd shifts in tempo and heavy jostling. "The toughest race I've ever been in," said Britain's Kelly Holmes. Favor Hamilton was shoved once by Portugal's Carla Sacramento and gave up the lead before taking it back with 300 meters to run. Entering the home stretch, she faded and began tightening. Five runners passed Favor Hamilton before she suddenly flailed her arms and fell to the track. The entire field went by before she rose, jogged and then walked across the finish line. Favor Hamilton was taken to a medical room at the stadium. She didn't recall finishing the race, which was won by Nouria Merah-Benida of Algeria in 4:05.10. "She was like a boxer who had been knocked out," said a person familiar with Favor Hamilton's treatment. As her head cleared, she cried in her husband Mark's arms. She was neither sick nor injured but apparently beaten by a combination of nerves and exhaustion in a race she wanted badly to win. El Guerrouj could relate. At the 1996 Olympics he was on the cusp of winning the 1,500-meter gold medal when he was tripped and fell in the race. In the ensuing four years he obliterated the world records for the 1,500 (3:26 flat) and the mile (3:43.13), and he won a world title in the 1,500 last summer in Seville. In Sydney, however, he felt such pressure that he began crying en route from the warmup track to the main stadium. In the race his countryman and rabbit, Youssef Baba, fell off after a fast 800 meters (1:54.77) and hung El Guerrouj out on the lead. Kenya's Noah Ngeny followed closely and, in the final 50 meters, easily ran past El Guerrouj. In defeat El Guerrouj was impossibly hard on himself. "I am not Olympic champion today," he said. "Perhaps in four years I will strengthen my skills." Capel will surely do the same. He looked much the fastest 200-meter runner through three rounds preceding the final, but when the gun was fired, he stood up and nearly stopped. "I thought I false-started," he said. "I know I false-started. They should have called it back." While Capel chased hopelessly, 27-year-old Konstadinos Kederis, an unknown Greek -- "A guy whom I've never heard of, and I'm a 200-meter runner," said Michael Johnson -- raced to a gold medal in 20.09, the slowest Olympic winning time in 20 years. Capel's failure was Kederis's reward. In the end there was also comfort in knowing that some wishes, like Kederis's, are fulfilled. Nick Hysong, a 28-year-old born in the rock and roll town of Winslow, Ariz., who first pole-vaulted at age six with a broomstick and pillows, won America's first vault gold medal since Bob Seagren's in 1968. Ethiopians won an amazing eight medals (four gold) in the six events of 5,000 meters and longer. Yet the final image of the Games belonged to the venerable Johnson, running through the artificial light and a moth invasion as the anchor of the 4x400-meter men's relay, the last Olympic race of his career. He earned his second gold medal of the Games and his fifth in three Olympics. His performance unfolded precisely as he had planned when he came to Sydney, and nothing happened to alter it. Issue date: October 9, 2000
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