SHAWN CRAWFORD was crowned the Olympic men’s 200 metres champion last night, leading an armada of United States sprinters through to the medal spots and completing the second American sprint one-two-three in four days. But for all the might of the fast Americans, this event was somehow as much about the host nation as it was the United States.
Even in his absence, Konstantinos Kenteris was not a forgotten figure. This was supposed to be Kenteris’s race, it had been intended as his crowning moment and this was not allowed to go unrecorded. Indeed, the Greek crowd did a mighty good job of hijacking it on his behalf.
The race was scheduled to start at 10.50pm local time. The gun, however, was delayed by at least five minutes while the crowd chanted “Hellas, Hellas”. There were no Greek runners in the race, but this was hardly the point. They began chanting the moment that the runners arrived at their blocks and despite the message on the big screen, “Quiet for the start”, they were not inclined to stop.
Their chanting grew in volume when the three Americans were introduced, as if to drown out the sound of their names, and it started to die down only when the stadium announcer asked, in two languages, for the finalists to be shown some respect. The runners then went to their blocks but were immediately called out because the noise was still too loud.
Any doubt as to the message in all of this was then dispelled. The gun went, but the race starter called them back because of a false start and it was as they returned to their blocks that the chant changed from “Hellas” to “Kenteris”.
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This may have played with the concentration of the athletes. Crawford, for one, got off to a particularly bad start, although he came strong, as he has done through the rounds, coming off the bend and bursting into the home straight. It was here that he went past Justin Gatlin, his training partner, and Bernard Williams, the third American, winning in 19.79sec.
Frankie Fredericks, the popular, evergreen Namibian, made a last, brave burst to finish fourth, but this was not a day for old-stagers, it was another new dawn.
Crawford is not exactly a fresh face; he has hung around on the fringes of the medal spots, his best result being his gold in the world indoor 200 metres three years ago. But since November he has been training with Trevor Graham, the former coach to Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery, and has been transformed.
Until he went to Graham, he was belligerently self-coached, unfulfilled and probably best known for a TV stunt when he raced a giraffe and a zebra over 100 metres. He beat the giraffe but could not match the zebra, which he claimed got a false start.
Now, despite all his goofing around on the start line, he is to be taken seriously. That, at least, is the message from his young training partner. Gatlin has said that he and Crawford could become like Ato Boldon and Maurice Greene. Which one gets to play Greene and which one his more intelligent, less successful sidekick has yet to become clear, but the point is that they are threatening a new era of dominance. What is really required of them, if they are to be the new kings of the catwalk, is a reign that brings respect back to their art.
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It does not help that they are coached by Graham, who has a bad record of having his athletes test positive, although given the Greek show of support for their absent hero yesterday, maybe no one really cares.
After Gatlin won the 100 metres on Sunday, he said that he was a clean champion and talked about bringing positivity back to his sport. Together with Crawford, that would probably be a better legacy than anything Boldon and Greene have done.