Moncur stars in 400m soap opera

It took 44.64 seconds to find a successor to Michael Johnson as the new leader in world 400 metre running. What Edmonton also saw on Monday night was a mini soap opera, one race of eight stories.

For the first time, eight different nations contested a world championship 400 metre final. That Avard Moncur broke the line first, the only Bahamian athlete ever to win individual gold at these championships, would have satisfied the interest normally reserved for Johnson.

Yet there was also the tale of the part-time German in second, the veteran American in fourth, and five other nations with a word in the race that had become the most open of the championships.

In there as well was an amazing fact: not counting 1980, when they boycotted Moscow, this was the first time the Americans failed to win a medal in the Olympic or World Championships 400 metres since 1920.

So where does one began? Moncur, a tender 22 and still studying at Auburn University, had targeted this title ever since missing a place in the Olympic final last year by 0.01 of a second.

"This is my first step, winning my first individual gold medal," he said. "I'd like to think that I'm starting a roll."

His talent suggests that Moncur may indeed take over the mantle from Johnson for a number of years, but the narrow win here also suggests it won't be easy.

Greg Haughton of Jamaica had to be satisfied with bronze in 44.98, as he did in Sydney last year, but he is sure to be running for titles for a while yet.

However, for the 33-year-old American Antonio Pettigrew, fourth place looks to mark the end of the road. He had hoped to seal his career with gold 10 years after he won the title in Tokyo, but despite competing in his fourth world final, Pettigrew admitted he had blown his chances with a poor start.

"I have a year left on my contract, but the way I'm feeling now I think it would be better to retire," he said, not even satisfied with his 44.99 clocking. "I blew it."

Yet the unpredictable script produced it biggest twist with the silver medal. If you never heard of Ingo Schultz until now, don't worry: "I had never heard of him either," said Moncur, "but thanks to him I had to run a great race to win the gold here."

Schultz is a 26-year-old German army lieutenant in Hamburg who prefers playing the violin and chess to training and had just gone from running in the Hamburg marathon four years ago to challenging for the title as successor to Michael Johnson.

"Maybe athletics isn't such a bad part-time career after all," said the German, who is currently writing a thesis on electrical engineering. "If my commander had told me I would one day be standing on the podium with a world silver medal, I would have said, 'you're crazy'. Of course then I would have been court-martialled and I probably wouldn't have been here."

At 6ft 7in it didn't take long for the German to get noticed in Edmonton. He took half a second off his personal best to win his semi- final in 44.66, and virtually matched that with 44.67 in the final.

Yet he was so relaxed before the start that he not only heard the shouts of encouragement of some team-mates in the stand, but turned round and waved at them. And the 26 year-old stumbled into athletics only because he was required to practise sport twice a week, and his first race ever was the Hamburg Marathon in 1997, which he finished in 3:37.

"This is such a big surprise. I came here to reach the semi-finals. I can't believe I actually made the final and won the silver medal. I'm waiting to see if I wake up."

According to German journalist Gustav Schwenk, Schultz comes from a part of Germany, a small town called Lingen near Bremen, which is referred to as the "Arabian Desert of Athletics" because it has never produced a decent athlete. Before now, that is.

Canadian sprinter Venolyn Clarke, who finished eighth in her 100 metres quarter-final on Sunday, competed while still unaware she had failed a drugs test.

Yesterday, Athletics Canada was informed by the Centre for Ethics in Sport that Clarke, in an out-of-competition test carried out in Calgary on July 31st, had provided a positive sample for stanozol metabolite.

Stanazol is the same substance the infamous Ben Johnson was found guilty of using after his 1988 Olympic Games victory in Seoul.