ATHENS, July 29: In a city where it can sometime take half an hour to move 100 metres in heavy traffic, it is fitting that one of the most eagerly-awaited races at the World Athletics Championships will be the men's sprint.

Thanks to laser technology, fans in Athens will be able to see what speeds the likes of 100 metres champion Donovan Bailey and his rivals are hitting for the first time.

The laser could be an important step in making athletics more attractive to spectators in the stadium and television viewers around the world.

It could certainly answer the question about whether Bailey or American 200 and 400 metres Olympic champion Michael Johnson is the fastest human on the planet.

Organisers hope to display the speed on television soon after races like the 100, 200 and 400 metres and the results will be announced to the Athens crowd.

Until now speeds have been analysed by studying video. The fastest times in the men's 100 have been around 12 metres per second (43 kph). Bailey was clocked at 43 kph (27 mph) when he set his world record in the Olympic final last year -- said to be the fastest any human has ever run.

Like policemen trying to catch speeding cars, organisers have placed lasers at the end of the straights and will aim them at the lower backs of the athletes -- the best place for an accurate reading of peak velocity.

Bailey and his rivals are likely to be running around the speed limit for most residential areas around the world. ``We have a lot of attention now and new things like this laser test to find out who runs the fastest top speed will help even more,'' Bailey said.

The remarkable talents of an athlete can sometimes be lost on the watching public when he or she is competing at a level where standards are so high. Television can often make performances look slower and easier than they really are.

Make a group of talented schoolboy 400 metres runners star a race against one of the top middle-distance stars when he is entering the final lap of a 1,500 race and the astonishing pace of the last lap would become much clearer.

The real speed of the 100 metres can get lost on spectators unless they are standing right at the side of the track when the sprinters flash by.

HISTORY BECKONS OTTEY: Jamaican sprint veteran Merlene Ottey is on course for being remembered as never winning an Olympic title in five Olympic Games but should she win here she will create a more preferable piece of history as the oldest ever world champion.

The 37-year-old Ottey, who saw her last chance of Olympic gold disappear in the final 30 metres of the 200 metres as Marie-Jose Perec stormed past her, would easily beat the Czech Republic's Helena Fibingerova who won the -- 1983 shot putt title at the age of 34.

Were Ottey, who ran in the 1984 Olympics as Ottey-Page during her ill fated marriage to hurdler Nat, to finish in the medal positions, she would still hold the record for oldest medallist as the 1984 Olympic champion -- Maricica puica took silver in the 1987 3,000 metres aged 37 and 34 days -- Ottey will be 37 years old and 83 days when the championships open on August 1.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.