American pride was restored and Maurice Greene was confirmed as the new crown prince of sprinting, with a breathtaking success in the final of the men's 100 metres at the World Championships in Athens last night.

Greene, who scarcely warranted a mention among the aristocracy of the event when Donovan Bailey won this title in Gothenburg two years ago, was as good as his word when delivering on a pre-championship promise, to touch off the defending champion in a new championship record of 9.86 seconds.

"I went on record a few months back as saying that it was time an American won back the title and I pledged that I'd be the person to do it," he said.

"Ever since I started training for this championship on September 28th last, I felt I could win it and the closer we got to Athens, the deeper the conviction became. And now I thank the Lord for giving me the power to do this.

"In many respects, it was the perfect race for me. I started well, picked up beautifully and while I was aware that the others were bearing down on me, I knew that I just had to get to that finish line first."

After all the confident predictions that the world record would go, Greene had to settle for a time which was two hundredths of a second outside Bailey's existing figures but that, of itself, was not a cause of immediate regret.

"I needed to prove myself a championship winner here and I did," he said. "There will be other occasions to attack the record but here it was all about winning."

For once, Bailey's start was reasonably fluent but, in keeping with a championship in which he was beaten in all three of his races on the way to the final, he lacked that aura of brilliance which took him to gold in Gothenburg and again in Atlanta.

"I have no excuses," he said. "I just broke up technically in the final. I thought I was on for a good night after running well in the semi-final but I just didn't have it when I needed it most."

Thus, after a period in which Ben Johnson, Linford Christie and Bailey in turn dominated track's most explosive event in the post-Carl Lewis era, the title has come back to where many say, it correctly belongs.

But that will be no consolation at all to Greene's confidant, the Trinidadian, Ato Boldon, whose frailties under pressure were again illustrated in a disappointing fifth place, behind Tim Montgomerie and Frankie Fredericks.

Women's sprinting also has a new champion and a new name for adulation after Marion Jones, another American, had held off a superb late run by the Ukraine's Zhanne Pintussevich to win by two hundredths of a second in 10.83 and complete an American double for the first time since Lewis and Florence Griffith Joyner won at the Seoul Olympics in 1988.

It was close, desperately close at the finish and the Ukrainian - believing that she had caught the leggy American on the line - promptly embarked on a victory lap of honour.

She had just got half way down the back straight, however, when the giant electric scoreboard overlooking the stadium, conveyed the news that Jones had, indeed, held on and suddenly the stadium photographers were headed in a different direction.

It was another exasperating occasion for Marlene Ottey who after a false start, ran some 70 metres at full pace before realising that the starter had recalled the field. After that, she was never going to be a factor in the race.

Michael Johnson wasn't the only one holding his breath after the flamboyant Texan had come within two hundredths of a second of going out of the 400 metres championship.

In spite of the acrimonious backlash of that ill-advised race against Donovan Bailey in Toronto, much of the commercial value of these championships has been based on Johnson's magnetism.

Primo Nebiolo, among others, sat and suffered as the double Olympic champion missed out on one of the automatic qualifying places for the semi-finals and had to depend on going through as one of the three fastest losers.

Eventually, he made it but had he not done so, he could have blamed only himself after being guilty of breaching one of the basic rules of the track.

With a place in the first three apparently secured, he eased back on the throttle over the last 15 metres and could scarcely believe his eyes when he discovered that Ibrahima Wade of Senegal, had passed him on the outside to claim third spot.