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Bailey fails to qualify in 100
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- It was a race Donovan Bailey never should have run, and one he couldn't finish. The defending Olympic 100-meter champion had overcome a career-threatening Achilles' tendon injury to come back to the track. He couldn't overcome a nasty case of the flu. "I shouldn't have run," he said Friday night. "But I've never been one to back down, and I'll go out fighting. This is the Olympic Games. This is the ultimate ultimate." The illness struck him four days earlier. He underwent repeated injections of fluids and took antibiotics. Nothing worked. "I don't know what it is. It's been real, real tough," Bailey said. "There's a lot of fluid in my lungs. I can't really breathe after 40 meters of the race." The scene was so different from four years ago, when Bailey won the gold in Atlanta in 9.84 seconds, a world record at the time and celebrated wildly. On Friday, the 32-year-old Canadian sprinter barely made it through the first round in the morning. He qualified for the second round but obviously was struggling. Afterward, he sat for what seemed an interminable time at the far end of an area set aside for the athletes to put on their warmups. He stared at the floor in misery.
It took him a good 15 minutes to change his clothes. Then he left without speaking to reporters, shaking his head from side to side when someone asked how he felt. He slept an hour and a half, then came back to the track. In the second round Friday night, Bailey had a false start, then was extremely slow out of the blocks in what turned out to be a false start caused by another runner. That only drained away more of the precious little energy he had. He tried to sprint out of the blocks. After 20 meters or so, he slowed down, eventually to a trot. Then he stopped altogether. "That's it," he thought to himself. Maurice Greene, who broke Bailey's world record and is the favorite to replace him as the Olympic gold medalist, came up to him and said a few words of encouragement. "It would always be good to have the defending Olympic champion in the final, but unfortunately we won't have that," Greene said later. "He's sick. He came out here and he gave it his best." Bailey's career nearly ended last fall, when he tore an Achilles' tendon while playing basketball. He came back though, through long, strenuous rehabilitation Although he never reached his previous form, there was the suspicion that he might still be a medal factor. He had a history of coming through in big races. Bailey hopes he can run in the 400-meter relay next Saturday. "I'm committed to the relay," Bailey said. "I just have to get a couple of days' rest and we'll see what I can do. I want to run the relays, but if I feel like this...."
He didn't complete the sentence.
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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