Johnson's run defining moment

IF the quality of the track and field programme is the yardstick by which the Olympic Games are measured, Atlanta 96, for all its warts and worldliness, has to be judged a success.

Tacky it unquestionably was and there were times when the evidence that the International Olympic Committee had betrayed its charter in the stampede towards commercialism was overwhelming.

Yet, by the time it entered its second week the tempo of the programme in the Olympic stadium had reached a point where, for all the frailties of those who oversaw it, the world was lost in admiration of the cast.

There are those who will see in the survival of every world record from 400 metres upwards, the proof that, in the prevailing weather conditions, the odds were always stacked against competitors in the endurance events.

That is to overlook the fact, however, that the pendulum in athletics has swung back this year towards the sprinters, now basking in a spotlight with once was theirs, almost by right.

Long before Atlanta was visited, the expectation was that the sprints would provide some of the most memorable moments of the Games. And yet, nothing could have prepared us for the sheer thrill of watching Donovan Bailey rewrite the 100 metres record or Michiel Johnson's even more stunning achievement in shaving 34 hundredths of a second off of his own 200 metres record of 19.66 seconds.

Improvements of those dimensions are almost inconceivable in Olympic 200 metres competition and, given the fact that Pietro Mennea's earlier record had stood for 17 years, Johnson's run was more astounding still.

The big Texan is a man of curious contrasts. The gold shoes, the gold necklace which swung from his neck and the pierced gold earring which he took with him to the starting line, were the trappings of ostentation. Yet, out of competition, he is a mild, often self effacing athlete who prefers to let his feet do the talking.

Even he, however, was moved to lay bare his emotions on the track after he had hurtled across the finish line ahead of Frankie Fredericks and then looked for his finishing time. The world record was obliterated and he had taken his place in sporting folklore by becoming the first to complete the 200 and 400 metres double.

There are moments in athletics history which are inscribed indelibly on the mind. Herb Elliott's mile record at Santry, Bob Beamon's long jump in Mexico City, Ben Johnson's discredited 100 metres run in Seoul and Butch Reynold's 400 metres record in Zurich serve as landmarks in the evolution in the oldest of the sporting disciplines.

Posterity, I suspect, will treat Michael Johnson's performance in the same light and ensure that when much else about Atlanta 96 is forgotten, people will pause and say "yes, I was there".

Bailey's 100 metres time of 9.84 seconds, was only marginally less brilliant in a season in which the naturalised Canadian has often struggled to perform with the authority of a reigning world champion.

Now, after the histrionics which followed the disqualification of Linford Christie, he delivered abundantly as he rose late from the blocks to generate incredible speed over the last 50 metres.

Carl Lewis's winning long jump distance of 8.60 metres was modest in comparison with those he achieved in the 1980s but, no less than the record breakers, his is a name which will forever be identified with Atlanta.

After scrambling to qualify in the first instance, the finest Olympian of them all, perhaps, reached back into the past for the inspiration which enabled him to leap into history as the winner of nine golds and one silver medal and the first since Al Oerter to win the same event on four consecutive occasions.

Haile Gebrselassie had his dreams, too, and in this instance they were handsomely fulfilled in thrilling 10,000 metres final in which he held off Kenya's Paul Tergat.

Even more riveting was the women's equivalent in which Wang Junxia, quite superb in taking the 5,000 metres title, was shown to be human when, after miscalculating on the second last lap, she was denied the double by the enormous bravery of Portugal's Fernanda Ribeiro.

If Johnson's was the pivotal personality in men's sprinting, there wasn't much doubt about Marie Jose Perec's status as the outstanding performer in the women's programme.

Barring the sensational, there was never much doubt that Perec's long legs could carry her faster than any of her rivals in the 400 metres final. Less predictable was the manner in which she spurned silver and drove herself to the limits of endurance to catch Marlene Ottey in the charge to the line in the 200 final.