SYDNEY – On this night, Maurice Greene had to be the fastest person on the planet. Second place was as delectable an option as a breakfast of razor blades and snake venom.
Greene had to win the Olympic 100 final. Had to. In order to make good on his statement that a career is “worthless” without Games gold. In order to land that gold for a coach who was unable to finish his Olympic race. And in order to make sure the tears in these Olympics were of pure joy.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself at my first Olympics,” Greene said.
He passed the stress test. His competitors all recognize that at this point of his life if Greene runs well, he wins. And he ignored the pressures to run well. A good start. A long-drive portion early in the race. A full-out acceleration to about 27 mph around the 60-meter mark that made bronze medalist Obadele Thompson of Barbados say, “I looked up and Maurice was gone.” He was completing 45 steps of near sprinting perfection.
“The kind of race Maurice ran tonight we were pretty much destroyed,” said Greene’s training partner, Ato Boldon of Trinidad, who earned silver.
Greene pulled away from Boldon three-quarters of the way through the race to earn the title of The Fastest Man in the World by winning the 100 in 9.87 seconds into a slight wind.
“I hope everyone was pleased with the outcome,” Greene said. “I know I was.”
How could he not be? He had spent the past four years obsessing on what does not even add up to 10 seconds when he runs well. He had spent the past four years creating an atmosphere in which being the second fastest man on earth was meaningless.
“If Maurice Greene wins silver, that would be big headlines,” Boldon said.
Boldon, training hardest for the 200, called any medal in the 100 “gravy.” Thompson was thankful for bronze after a career of fourth-place finishes at big meets. For Greene the position on the medal stand meant everything. He had bought fully into Pat Riley’s credo of victory or misery. Perhaps because he knew misery so well.
In 1996, Greene was a middling sprinter, supporting himself with odd jobs that included working on a loading dock. He did not even get out of the 100 quarterfinals at the Olympic Trials. For the Olympics, he drove from his Kansas City home to Atlanta and sat in the crowd at the 100 final as Canada’s Donovan Bailey blistered a world record of 9.84 seconds to win gold. Greene cried. He vowed that the start line four years later would include him. And the finish line would be visited by him first.
Wednesday marks the four-year anniversary since Greene arrived in Los Angeles to put himself in the hands of coach John Smith so that he could be remade into an elite runner. Part of what Greene has carried in this four-year quest is not only Smith’s knowledge, but his hunger. See Smith was the favorite to win the 1972 Olympic 400. But he had suffered a hamstring injury and needed to pull up less than 100 meters into the race. Which is why Greene said the gold medal was to help Smith complete his journey.
From arriving to Smith to arriving in Sydney, Greene had become one of the most formidable sprinters in history. He has run more than 30 sub-10 100s, the most ever. In 1999, he became the first man to ever win the 100-200 double at the World Championships. And he broke Bailey’s 100 world record at those World Championships with a scorching 9.79 seconds.
Wearing a diamond in each ear and running from Lane 5, the bald, brawny Greene gritted his teeth down the track and contained his edginess to fulfill all his promises. He mouthed “thank you” after he crossed the finish line, and grabbed first his head, then Boldon. He would hurl his sneakers to the crowd and his emotions to the world.
Up on the victory stand, Greene bit his lip as a way of trying to stem tears. He said that the morning of this race, he had thought about the tears of four years earlier, but not again until afterward.
“In Atlanta, they were tears of sadness,” he said. “Tonight they were tears of joy.”