PARIS, 17 August 2003 — This season there has been a lot of talk from the younger breed of how they are ready to take over center stage from their elders — the World Championships will force them to prove it was not so much hot air.
Athletics greats such as Haile Gebrselassie, Allen Johnson, Jonathan Edwards and Gail Devers face vibrant challengers that do not threaten to be just one-championship wonders but to take over their champion mantle permanently.
Moroccan master Hicham El Guerrouj may have been humbled by Noah Ngeny in the Sydney 1500m Olympic final but has since proved that was a one-off and with his young pretender Kenyan William Chirchir out through injury he looks set fair for another world crown.
That is however if his flirtation with the 5000m — which he will also try to win in Paris — has not blunted his finishing speed as Gebrselassie fears has happened to him after trying out the marathon.
“That is logical that going up in distance will have an effect on your finishing burst — it is harder going back in distance than it is in going the other direction,” the 30-year-old two-time 10,000m Olympic champion said.
As he tries to regain the world crown after finishing third in Edmonton two years ago, his stablemate and compatriot Kenisa Bekele has taken the event by storm this campaign.
The 21-year-old even had the temerity to beat Gebrselassie in the Hengelo event, organized by their manager Jos Hermens, something which his older teammate says he was not angered by. “No he obviously felt he could win the race and didn’t want to share the burden of setting the pace with me,” said the ever smiling Gebrselassie.
While Bekele could quite easily scorched through the 5000m, El Guerrouj will be relieved if the rumors that Hermens wants him to take on Gebrselassie in the 10,000m are true.
For Johnson, the challenge set by Latvian Stanislas Olijars earlier in the season when the former junior world champion set the then fastest time of the year, got the perfect answer from a genuine titan of the 110m hurdles.
The 32-year-old took him on in Paris and ran the fastest time run in three years in the event, 12.97sec.
“I know the young guys are getting closer to me, but I just wanted to set the record straight and let them know my age might read 32 but mentally and physically I feel a lot younger,” said the 1996 Olympic champion.
Edwards has a future awaiting him as BBC religious affairs correspondent — suitable for a vicar’s son — and Swede Christian Olsson will be hoping to send him on his way with a resounding defeat in the triple jump.
Already victorious over the 37-year-old world record holder in last year’s European Championships, 23-year-old Olsson will be looking to take the world crown from him and possibly provoke Edwards into retiring ahead of his Olympic title defense next year.
“I would never say I have taken the initiative over Edwards, for great champions never lose their ability to pull one great performance out of the bag and perhaps for the worlds he will find the buzz to do just such a thing,” said Olsson, who had to console himself with silver behind Edwards in the 2001 championships.
Devers is perhaps the most remarkable of the oldies having beaten Graves disease (a thyroid complaint) when she almost had to have her foot amputated to win two Olympic 100m flat titles and several world 100m hurdles crowns.
Bested by younger American Anjanette Kirkland in Edmonton, she vowed to continue and this time round her biggest hurdle will be Jamaican Brigitte Foster, who at 29 looks at last ready to take the champions title having the best time in the world this season.
“I’ve seen them come and seen them go and I am still here competing at the top,” said Devers. The three-time world 100m hurdles champion certainly has and like the rest of her vintage it will have to be a hard headed young athlete who manages to best the grizzled if not totally battle weary veterans and then prove they can consistently do so.
Three years ago hurdles greats Allen Johnson and Gail Devers looked to have ended their glittering careers in Olympic disappointment — however such has been their determination to regain the undisputed No. 1 spots that they enter the worlds as favorites in their events.
Johnson, 32, finished a disappointing fourth in the Olympic final while Devers’ jinx in the 100m hurdles continued as she bowed out in the semifinals but such is her form this season that a dream end to her career in Athens next year cannot be ruled out.
In what has been a relatively low-key athletics season so far Johnson has been one of the rare standouts putting the young pretenders firmly in their place in the Paris Golden League meeting with a world best of the year of 12.97 which was also the best time recorded in three years.
The quietly spoken American — Olympic champion in 1996 — said he had wanted to fire a message to the younger hurdlers such as Stanislas Olijars which was that the old man was still around. “I know they are catching up and improving, but I was deadset on letting them know that these old legs are very much still in business,” he said.
Johnson had responded to his Olympic failure in the best possible way as he returned in 2001 to take the world outdoor title, though whether anybody outside athletics noticed is a moot point. “I am the quiet man of athletics,” he said.
“I am not a trashtalker and if I started it wouldn’t be real.
“I just let my feet do the talking and I guess it is the media who decides who is fashionable and should make the money but I will always be the way I am.”
While Johnson relaxes away from the track on his 1000cc Yamaha motorbike and playing basketball with friends Devers seems focused on just one thing — the elusive Olympic 100m hurdles gold.
