Reality bites as gold turns to dust for the old brigade

Reality bites as gold turns to dust for the old brigade
Agence France Presse

Sydney, October 2: ``I have lived this dream for four years and it lies in tatters at my feet.''

Nothing encapsulated better the athletics than the distressed Hicham el Guerrouj's comment after he had been beaten by Kenya's Noah Ngeny in the blue riband of the middle distance races, the 1500 metres.

When all was said and done the kings of the track and field over the past four years saw their supposed crowning at the top table of athletics fall like leaves in autumn.

For all their world titles and world records El Guerrouj, who found the weight of the Moroccan nation too much to bear and turned up to the stadium already crying, Wilson Kipketer and Donovan Bailey could not produce the goods when they were required and for them Olympic glory slipped from their grasp.

``I hand my crown over to Noah Ngeny,'' the 26-year-old Moroccan said as he revealed that he would be moving up to 5000 metres. ``I was too stressed and felt the pressure of the Moroccan people and the King on me,'' he added.

Talk about pressure ! If there was a symbol of when the going gets tough the tough get going then Marion Jones was it.

She may not have won the five gold medals but then everyone apart from her entourage knew it was a big ask without having a long jump coach.

However, to battle through and win three gold and two bronzes with the revelations that her husband CJ Hunter had tested positive four times during his travels round the European circuit showed that she was still a quite outstanding athlete.

``I wanted five and didn't get them. That was disappointing,'' she said.However, at least she can dream again of trying it in Athens and her worth to the sport is so priceless that everyone will be willing her to stay fit and healthy.

While Jones will probably be there in Athens Kipketer, who ran the worst race of his life and produced one of the images of the Games when he crossed the line looked up to the Screen and rubbed his head in sorrow, it is probably one strike and out.

``It is a crushing blow but I have lived through malaria and I think I can survive this disappointment,'' Kipketer said in his usual enigmatic style.It was the end of an era too for Michael Johnson, who finished the Games with a baton in his hand as he effortlessly led the United States to the 4x400 relay gold and then promptly handed it over to the younger generation of 400m runners.

``I didn't want to finish my Games career with a silver or a bronze,'' said the man adorned with 24 carat golden shoes.

``There's nothing to be gained by going to the World Championships next year. I will think about when and where I will choose to retire,'' he added.The sport will probably never see his like again - so easy was he in the individual event that he had time to look up at the screen at the 200m mark - and it will be poorer for it.

His dignified and touching embrace of all the runners from all the teams in the relay at the end was a nice contrast to his least favourite athlete Maurice Greene.

Greene, who was labelled immature by Johnson after he trashtalked him during the US trials, has assumed the mantle of a great champion by doing the Grand Slam World record, two World titles and now the Olympic gold but his behaviour after winning the relay along with two of his fellow teammates left a sour taste in the mouth.

John Capel, the man who benefitted from Greene and Johnson's injuries in the US 200m final, may not have done himself proud in the Olympic final showing his inexperience by not getting up when he rocked forward just before the gun and lost five metres on the rest of the field but he put it best when he described how Greene might self destruct.

``The only person who really trash talks to me is Maurice Greene, but he does that to everybody,'' he said. ``However, trashtalk has got him into trouble before and it will do so again,'' he added.

Bailey, who cleansed the image of Canadian sprinting after the Ben Johnson fiasco, never even looked like putting up a challenge and it was clear from the first round heats that the eloquent Jamaican-born runner was not going to be at the races.

``I had to come here to at least defend my Olympic crown. For Donovan Bailey don't lie down for anybody,'' he said.

However, by the time the Games were coming to a close that mantra and the enormous successes in his career was wearing thin on him and a less glorious retirement than Johnson's was on the cards.

``Normally one would think that that tactic (of geeing him up) would work but that's not the type of person Donovan is," a source from within his camp remarked.

``His future is really up in the air,'' the source added.

El Guerrouj may not have been able to handle the pressures of a nation's expectations but Cathy Freeman showed that she could even in front of nearly 100,000 of her own compatriots.

However, like Bailey and Johnson she even contemplated retirement and who could blame her as she expressed after her sensational win.

``I don't know if it gets any better than this, she said.

``It'll have to be something really phenomenal to better this.''For Michael Johnson in the sprints read Haile Gebrselassie in the distance races as the ever smiling tiny runner produced along with perennial Kenyan rival Paul Tergat the race of the Olympics in the 10,000 metres.

The man who ignored his father's advice to become a civil servant because he said there was no future for him in running produced one last surge down the finishing straight to edge out Tergat and make it a memorable farewell to the distance he has dominated for the past eight years.

While `Haile Satirical' bowed out with gold two Caribbean athletes found that their endless search for Olympic gold was just so much dust to dust.

Ato Boldon, Greene's club teammate, as usual talked about the race but never had it in him, adding a silver and bronze to the two bronze from Atlanta, and even though he's only 26 it is hard to see him turning up in Athens as a favourite.

Johnson, no friend of the HSI camp, may not have picked the winner of the 200 as Floyd Heard, given a chance at 34 to at last show that he hadn't just been the makeweight in the Carl Lewis and Leroy Burrell camp, bombed out in the semi-finals but he had Boldon down to a T.

``If you are race favourite you have to assume that mantle and not run away from it,'' he said of the Trinidadian and he was to be proved right.

While Boldon may well be in Athens it surely has to be the case that Jamaican sprint legend Merlene Ottey has run her last 100m at an Olympics.

The 40-year-old, who wants to move into fashion design, only had two months to prepare after she had her ban for nandrolone quashed for lack of evidence but finished a respectable fourth in the individual, which she had finally won selection for ahead of the National champion and mass protests by half her teammates.

The `Lion Queen' as she has become known ended her sixth Olympics with silver in the relay and related how she had been able to return after the numerous defeats she had put up with over the years.

``Others wilt after a couple of finals defeats. I was able to rise up when I lost and start from scratch again and I had the ability to put aside disappointments,'' she said.

El Guerrouj, Boldon and Kipketer would do well to abide by those very same rules for its never over till its over and dreams no matter that they last four years can come true - honest!