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The Lion Queen sees a silver lining as curtain comes down on Olympic career
= = SYDNEY, Sept 30 (AFP) - Jamaican sprint legend Merlene Ottey finished her extraordinary Olympic career with yet another minor medal, silver, here on Saturday in the 4x100 metres relay and declared that it might have been gold if the team had practised more. The 40-year-old, who in six Olympics has won eight medals but never gold, claimed that if they had practised more she might well have finished with a gold but she added that after all the protests over her inclusion ahead of champion Peta-Gay Dowdie in the individual event she hadn't raised the issue to avoid more tension. "To come in and get silver is some consolation," she said. "We had a great chance for gold but I lost a metre thanks to receiving the baton from Beverley McDonald in the small of my back ...still at least I didn't drop it," she added. However, Ottey, who was winning her 35th medal in a major championships, said she felt that her successful battle to clear her name following the two year ban imposed last August for testing positive for nandrolone - it was quashed for lack of evidence - felt like an Olympic gold medal. "I am a fighter and I was determined to clear my name," she said. "Those were my darkest days. "I felt like somebody who had been given the death sentence incorrectly and all I wanted to do was hide away. "I really thought I was in a coma and the world had gone funny since the eclipse had just happened," she added. Ottey, known as the Lion Queen for the moment when bedecked in gold jewellery and sporting a golden mane she kept Marion Jones and her other rivals waiting as she prowled back to the start of the 1997 100m world final following a false start, believed that there was somebody out there trying to get her. "I only had two months to train and then when I arrive in the village and there are these protests by some of my fellow athletes just four days before I raced I thought man there's somebody who really doesn't want me to run," she said. "I think it was too much for me to run four rounds so soon after returning but if I race well enough next year I might well show up at the world championships because they (the IAAF) robbed me of a title last year," she added. Ottey, who is a two-time 200m world champion, said she refused to call it a day because of her insatiable appetite for the sport. "I can't say that I'm going to retire now because I have done that before and then once I get out onto the track for just a jog I love it so much that I return to the circuit," she said. "If I retire I will not stay around the sport because I've been in it since I was 14 and I want to turn my talents towards fashion and design," she added. Ottey, who is also desperate to marry and have children, put her enduring ability and longevity down to her incredibly strong character. "Others wilt after a couple of finals defeats," she said. "I was able to rise up when I lost and start from scratch again. "I had the ability to put aside disappointments," she added. Ottey said that of all the Olympic finals she had contested the only one she felt she should have won was the 100m in 1996 when she ran the same time as Gail Devers but lost out on a photofinish. "If I hadn't had slipped slightly at the start there would have been no need for a photo finish," she purred. So near yet so far but the Lion Queen remains unbowed, undimmed and definitely untamed.
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