WHEN the TV cameras begin to focus on the sprinters in opening rounds of the men’s 100 metres on the track today, many of us will feel that the London Olympics have finally begun. It does no disservice to the other sports. The swimming and gymnastics have certainly had nerve ends jumping, and Ireland’s equestrian heroes’ magnificent team fifth place in the 3 Day Eventing should be praised from the roof-tops, but track and field remains the premier Olympic sport. The athletics programme commenced yesterday with 400 metres hurdles men’s and women’s qualifying rounds as well as various field events, sufficient preliminary action to justify setting up camp in front of the nearest TV.
No other Olympic sport possesses quite the magic, quite the allure – or so many heroes, the victorious and the vanquished. It is true that there are two events that always appear just that extra bit special; the 100 metres and the 1,500 metres. Only one man has succeeded in retaining the Olympic 1,500 metres title and he is, fittingly, Mr London 2012 – Sebastian Coe, gold medallist in Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984. Two women have achieved 100 metres doubles: Wyomia Tyus in Tokyo 1964 and Mexico 1968; an achievement matched by fellow American Gail Devers, a sprint hurdler, who won the 100 metres in Barcelona 1992 and again in Atlanta four years later.
To date no male Olympic 100 metres athletics champion has yet defended his title. But history may be in making in tomorrow’s final should the world record holder Jamaican Usain Bolt negotiate his way as expected through today’s qualifying heats and second round. In addition to his injury problems there is his countryman, training partner and friend, Yohan Blake, the current world champion, who at 22 is three years younger than Bolt and far less flamboyant. A third Jamaican also has an interest in the Olympic 100 metres. His name is Asafa Powell and he is now 29 and overshadowed by his younger team mates. Yet he held the 100 metres world record from June 2005 until August 2008 when Bolt broke it while easing up to take gold in the Beijing Olympic final. Powell feels he still has something to say, particularly to his critics convinced that he can not deal with pressure. Once upon a time, or so it now seems, team USA owned the Olympic 100 metres medals, but now Jamaica is the force blocking the way of American sprinters Tyson Gay and Ryan Bailey.
No matter how the drama unfolds this weekend, thoughts will continue to drift back to an another Olympic 100 metres showdown, Seoul 1988, as the irritating glamour boy Carl Lewis set out to defend the title he had won in Los Angeles. His major obstacle was Jamaican-born Canadian Ben Johnson, who arrived at the Olympics as the world champion and obvious challenger, with a sequence of wins over Lewis. There are those who may still ask the question as to one’s whereabouts when Kennedy was shot or when man first walked on the moon, but all that changed that day in Seoul when a stocky figure dressed in the red of Canada powered to 100 metres gold and a surreal world record of 9.79 as if he had been jet-propelled. The only response was “Wow” and “Wow” it was, the shock on the face of Lewis was shared by viewers across the world.
Johnson’s run was amazing – so was the time, a world record. Johnson had beaten Lewis, and Canada had beaten the United States on sacred territory – the Olympic 100 metres final.
For many athletics fans it was about more than a great performance. Johnson had earned his success, he had slowly moved up through the sprinting ranks, always improving and well, he was a man of few words. For all Lewis’s ingratiating efforts to win the hearts of anyone with a heart to be won, and despite his four gold medals in Los Angeles, he was never liked. Of course rumours of steroid use had long fluttered in Johnson’s wake but we humans are fickle; notions of right and wrong don’t tend to influence our preferences. Even more unfortunate was the fact that long before Seoul athletics, particularly sprinting, had relinquished its innocence as labs devised increasingly clever performance-enhancing drugs, many based on human growth hormones. Drug testing had become more efficient but so too had the coaches whose drug programmes were supervised by scientists and doctors. Johnson may have had steroids coming out of his ears, as did other sprinters in the elite squad coached by Charlie Francis, but there were more shrugs than open accusations.
In The Dirtiest Race in History, his carefully researched account of the 1988 Olympic 100 metres final and its sordid aftermath, Richard Moore examines that chilling moment in sport. Johnson’s win was celebrated until news of his testing positive filtered out. The story was not that he had taken drugs; it was that he had been caught. The shock was less about cheating, than about the managing of the withdrawal period.
Of the eight finalists in that Seoul race, seven Olympiads ago, only two competitors, American Calvin Smith, a one-time 100 metres world record holder and Brazilian Robson da Silva were never involved in drugs scandals. Carl Lewis had his own list of positive test results. No one is making any excuses for Ben Johnson but it is he, not Lewis who surfaces as the fallen angel, flawed, possibly stupid and a victim, corrupted by his only talent, the ability to run fast – just not fast enough without drugs.
The only error Moore makes in a compelling narrative is one that only a track nerd will spot. US sprinter Charlie Greene, 1968 Olympic 100 metres silver medallist and wit, in fact referred to his trademark sun glasses as his “re-entry peepers” – not shields.
So a Jamaican should win? Which one? The great Don Quarrie won three Commonwealth 100 metres gold for Jamaica, he also won the 1976 Olympic 200 metres title. Bolt is the defending 100 and 200 metres champion, and the world record holder in both events: his major problem should be his team-mates. His countrywoman Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce had the fastest time of the year 10.70 going into yesterday’s women’s qualifying rounds. She won in
Beijing and should defend her 100 metres title today. What is it about the Jamaican sun that inspires so many fabulous sprinters?
The Dirtiest Race in History, by Richard Moore is published by Bloomsbury