Trackside: Sydney gears up for athletics

Crunch time in the 27th Olympic Games is now just hours away as the big names of track and field athletics prepare to blend ambition with application on the biggest stage of all.

For much of the last five days, the main stadium has been no more than a landmark for the milling crowds, dispersing to the various championships, being held in the Olympic Park complex.

Essentially, however, these are mere sideshows in the grand Olympic scheme, an attractive prologue for the drama about to unfold for the biggest television audience in the history of the Games.

For the great majority of the estimated 3.7 billion who switch on for the Sydney spectacular, the appeal is in watching celebrities like Marion Jones, Maurice Greene and Michael Johnson pit mind and body against an array of talented pretenders.

Fittingly, all three will be in action today when, in a break with tradition, the championships will be launched with the heats of the men's 400 metres, quickly followed by the preliminaries of the men's and women's sprints.

It is a measure of the charisma of Marion Jones, a failed basketball player who found world acclaim on the track, that even in this pantheon of stars, hers is the name which tends to recur most often in the hype building around the Games.

That is a product in the first instance, of her exceptional range of events which has put her on line to become the first track and field athlete to win five gold medals in the same festival.

Of the five, only the long jump title next week, would appear to be in real doubt. Even with limited experience of top class 400 metres running, she looks capable of sharing in America's expected relay double, to add to wins in the 100 and 200 metres.

"People have called me superwoman and things like that and it amuses me," she says. "I'm certainly not invincible and I've never regarded myself as such."

Short on technique but big on power, the American refuses to speculate on her chances of beating the specialists in the long jump. "It's the big question - the big question mark for all of you. I'm just looking forward to going there, getting started and doing what I know is possible."

Tomorrow's heats of the 100 metres, followed by the second series later in the day, would appear to present Jones with no such problems as she seeks to qualify for the semi-finals with the minimum effort.

Energy conservation will also be uppermost in Greene's mind as he aspires to build on his achievement of becoming the first man to complete the world championship sprint double in Seville last year.

Undeniably, some of his performances this season have been less than imposing, notably at Gateshead last month where he went down to emerging Briton Dwain Campbell.

Like Ato Boldon, the only one to beat Greene over 100 metres last year and the struggling titleholder, Donovan Bailey, Campbell senses that the long arm of opportunity is about to reach out to him. That is to overlook the fact, however, that when the chips were down, Greene has seldom failed to deliver in recent seasons.

No less than Jones, however, he is scathing of suggestions that the opposition will be pitching their ambition at one of the minor placings in Saturday's final.

"I'd sure like to believe it but I know the other guys don't see it that way and neither do I," he says. Like Greene, Johnson was in the wars during the American trials in Indianapolis and that, perhaps, is the only doubt as he seeks to embellish one of the outstanding careers of modern years with back to back successes in the 400 metres.

At Atlanta four years ago, Johnson's winning margin of 0.92 seconds was the widest in the history of the championship. Given his frenetic struggle for fitness over the last two months, he could now struggle to replicate those figures of 43.49 seconds. And yet, for all imponderables, it is difficult to see anyone living with him when he opens the throttle over the last 200 metres.

If for no other reason than the spectacle of the great man in full flight, Sydney's magnificent Olympic Stadium is the place to be, for the next nine days.