On Athletics: The Irish Timesspares no expense with it athletics coverage and some fellow guests at my Hotel Nikko Osaka reflect that. The complimentary full-body massage prompted an early start yesterday and from there it was into the breakfast sushi bar, where a group of prominent athletes were immediately recognisable.
Among them was Asafa Powell, Jamaica's world record holder for the 100 metres and favourite to win the gold medal here tomorrow. Rather than disturb him, I sat next to his agent and mentor, Paul Doyle, a former rival of mine from back in our days as cross-country runners in the American Big East championships. Doyle has retained his boyish American looks and is unfailingly polite and highly likeable. No wonder he ended up marrying one of his former athletes, Karen Shinkins, who still holds the Irish 400-metre record, 51.07 seconds, from 1999.
Our conversation turned to his star athlete. Doyle has managed Powell since he broke onto the scene in 2003, when he ran the fastest heat of the World Championships in Paris (10.05 seconds) before being disqualified in the quarter-finals for a false start. His fifth-place finish at the Athens Olympics was a great disappointment but Powell responded the following year by lowering the world record to 9.77 seconds - a time he's twice equalled since - and his 29 sub-10-second runs is bettered only by Maurice Greene, who ran 52. He missed the last World Championships with injury, but at just 24 Powell is the undisputed fastest man on earth - although the American Tyson Gay could have something to say about that tomorrow.
"So is he clean?" I asked him, and without blinking Doyle replied: "I sure think so."
We were, naturally, talking about Gay rather than Powell, because Doyle has made it clear to me in the past there's no way Powell is taking drugs. Either Doyle is being ridiculously naïve, or else I am, but if 100-metre sprinting is a dirty game and full of misfits - as some people suggest - clearly Doyle is in the wrong business.
Doyle tells me had a beer the previous night with Gay's agent Mark Wetmore, someone he's got to know well in recent years. They agreed if both their athletes ran to their best Powell would win; if Tyson ran above his potential Powell would probably still win; but if Powell ran below his best Gay had a great chance. "It's funny about his coach though, isn't it?" I said. Doyle knew I was talking about Lance Brauman, Gay's coach of the past five years but now in Texarkana Correctional Institute for embezzling student funds while coaching at Barton Community College, Kansas. "Not the kind of thing a sprinter would want on his CV," I added.
Gay's progress this year has been far more startling than anything Powell achieved, his 9.84 seconds to win the US trials a big personal best, and he would be the world record holder had the 9.76 he ran in New York on June 2nd not been ruled out for a marginally illegal tailwind.
Throughout our conversation Doyle was openly frank about the problems of drugs in athletics, and it clearly concerns him. Still we both got very excited about the showdown between Powell and Gay, while realising how important it was for sprinting to restore some respect and admiration worldwide again. That clearly won't be easy given the reigning world champion Justin Gatlin is fighting a lifetime ban for a second doping offence.
Plenty of people in Osaka will be asking why Powell or Gay should be trusted anymore than the rest of them, especially given the times they've both run. And that's fair enough. And if either of them do ever test positive for something they won't have been the first athletes to fool their agents.
But there is something refreshingly trustworthy about the backgrounds of Powell and Gay. Even the way they behave and carry themselves makes them stand out from most of their predecessors. And despite the problems with Gay's coach, a former mentor of his, and another man of Irish connections, is Mayo-born John McDonnell, who oversaw his career at the University of Arkansas.
Before heading off Doyle told me Powell had a minor injury problem, a little tightness in the hip.
Maybe he was trying to take some pressure off his athlete, but for what it's worth everything else about Doyle is entirely believable. Here's hoping Powell proves the same.
