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The rest was history
Four years after the Olympics came to his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, 21-year-old Angelo Taylor is headed to the Olympic Games in Sydney. Taylor, a management student at Morris Brown, won the 400-meter hurdles at the U.S. Olympic Trials with a personal best time of 47.62 seconds -- the fastest time in the world this year. Check out Taylor's diary on CNNSI.com as he prepares to compete in Sydney.
August 29, 2000
After two meets in Europe, I am feeling strong and fast. The first meet on this trip was in Brussels, Belgium and the second in Gateshead, England. Now, I have one more meet in Berlin before heading home for a brief rest before going to Sydney. The Brussels meet -- the Van Damme Memorial -- went all right for me. I didn't feel really into it prior to the 400-meter hurdles, my race. But when the gun went off, I started to feel okay. It was a sloppy race at the beginning, but I got it together and moved into the lead. Then, I made a mistake. I tried to go 13 steps for the last nine hurdles (instead of my usual 13 steps to eight hurdles and 14 steps to the last two), and I couldn't make it. So I had to chop down to 14 steps and I broke my momentum. That's when Llewellyn Herbert of South Africa went past me, and I had to go chase him down. Usually I have enough speed to catch another hurdler in the final, flat part of the race, but unfortunately, I wasn't able to catch Herbert this time. He ran a 48.30 and beat me by three-one-hundreths of a second. But hey, I didn't dwell on it. I know what I did wrong and told myself I would correct it for the next race. Plus, these one-race meets are nothing compared to the Olympics. In the Olympics, there are three races not just one, including the qualifiers. I like it better that way, because I can get used to the track each round and make adjustments along the way. So by the final day, I can be ready to roll. Also, in the one-race meets we have here in Europe, you run a race and that's it. You can't make the proper adjustments. You have to go on to a new track, and that can be tough because each venue has its own atmosphere, its own shape of the track, and its own track surface. But the one-race meets do let me know what kind of shape I am in. After the race in Brussels, I didn't say anything to Herbet. We are not really best of friends. He's my toughest competitor. But Sydney is a whole different situation. When we get there, I will be ready every round. As for the race in England, the Norwich Union Classic in Gateshead, I was told that there was going to be a 300-meter race, so I asked my agent to get me in the meet so I could test my speed. He said okay, but then came back later and said the meet organizers had changed it to a 400-meter race and that I was in it. Not what I'd hoped, but that was all right. Then, when I got there it was cold -- about 60-degrees -- and raining. I didn't know what to expect. This was a straight 400-meter race, not a hurdles, so Herbert was not in this race. Neither was the reigning Olympic gold medalist and U.S. Olympics Trials champion Michael Johnson. But it was a pretty good field, and I knew that if I beat everyone, the U.S. Olympics Track and Field coaches would know what kind of shape I was in and they wouldn't have any doubts about putting me on the U.S. 4x400 relay team in Sydney. If I'm on that team, it will be great to have a chance to bring home two gold medals. So, prior to the race, even though England's climate is a far cry from the heat I'm used in an Atlanta summer, I got mentally prepared for the race. I told myself that I could run fast in those conditions because I had done it before. I knew that if I was anywhere close to the leader with 100 meters to go that I would have a good chance to use my speed to win. So, when the gun went off, I got a good start and was running very comfortably when two guys pulled up beside me with 125 meters to go. I put the pedal to the metal and the rest was history. I won the race with a time of 45.01 and was very pleased with the victory. That time would have been fast enough for third in the 400 meters race in Brussels, which Johnson won in 44.07 in what were somewhat faster conditions. Now, it's off to Berlin for the final meet before the Olympics. -- Angelo
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