Putting his best foot forward: Britain's premier high hurdler, Colin Jackson, competing in his fourth and final Games, has an elusive Olympic title in his sights in Sydney. Photograph: Russell Boyce
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There is a nasty, vicious side to Colin Jackson, and everything he does in life is calculated from a perspective of total self-interest. That, at least, is what he says. However, since we are disinclined to take anything that any sports personality says at face value, even somebody as genial as Jackson, we are not inclined to agree with this either.
And there is more than ample contradiction. For the most part of what has been the lengthiest and most consistently successful career in modern British athletics history, Jackson has been a beaming winning presence in the high hurdles, albeit not one who has blown his own whistle too loudly.
Yes, there has been a downside, such as his very public slanging match five years ago with the short-term British athletics chief, Peter Radford, over perceived slights on both sides. But for the rest of the time, Jackson, unlike his abrasive former friend and business associate, Linford Christie, has been quietly winning. Except in the Olympic Games.
He finished second to the former world record-holder Roger Kingdom in the Games as long ago as 1988 in Seoul, and should have won in 1992, when he was a big favourite. But a late injury upset his equilibrium, and he finished seventh, the only race he lost that year. The omission seemed even more blatant the following year, when he set the current world record of 12.91sec and won the world championship, a title he collected again in Seville last year. But in Atlanta, he admits he wasn't
up to it, leaving American Allen Johnson to win.
"In 1988, my major goal was to come home with a silver. Roger was by far the superior hurdler. I went there to be the second-best hurdler in the world, and I achieved that, that was my gold in absolute terms," said Jackson.
"I was the best high hurdler in the world in 1992. I wanted to fulfil a dream, I thought I was good enough to break the world record and become Olympic champion. I picked up a stupid injury, which blew my mind. If I had gone into the Games carrying the injury, I would have won, because I would have made allowances. Ninety-six was a horrible year, a rebound from 1995, and all those arguments with the federation; I couldn't raise my game."
Despite those setbacks, Jackson has still done enough to be a huge star in the British sports constellation. That he is not is partly to do with lack of rivalry. Many competitors come to be defined by their rivals. Seb Coe and Steve Ovett are the archetypal example in British athletics. It was to their, and our, benefit that their careers coincided. That Steve Cram followed right behind was a bonus.
Internationally, the case of Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson is perhaps a better example. Lewis was universally applauded when he won four gold medals at the Los Angeles Games in 1984. But that appreciation would have palled had he continued in Olympian isolation. The emergence of Johnson (by whatever means) defined Lewis as a competitor.
So it is with Jackson. Had injury not forced Jon Ridgeon out of the sport prematurely, the public rivalry that began when Ridgeon won the European junior race in 1985, and Jackson won the world junior the following year - with the other second on each occasion - would potentially have made the pair as famous as Coe and Ovett.
It might also have contributed to an acceleration of better race relations in British sport and the media in general. Two handsome, intelligent, articulate and accessible young men, one black, one white; what a team, what a positive image that could have purveyed.
Jackson responds to that suggestion without apparent rancour, but it was evident to him that Ridgeon was being lionised to his detriment: "It was definitely a black-white issue. Jon seemed to get huge exposure from winning the Euro juniors and I had minimal exposure from winning the world juniors and, as a child, you feel that more. Ultimately, I was going to progress anyway; Jon and myself were at different career levels. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened.
"Tony Jarrett achieved more than Jon, and Tony was a world silver medallist when he ran 13 [seconds] flat; he was the fourth-fastest ever. We didn't get the exposure we deserved."
In mitigation, it might be said that Ridgeon was probably a more flamboyant character than Jackson who, for all his amiability and reputed liveliness in private, does not court publicity.
The representative of Nuff Respect (the marketing company he set up with Christie) who revealed that Jackson was flamboyant among friends - something which he admits to - also said that he was so self-sufficient that he didn't need an agent.
That might have something to do with his split from Christie three years ago. It was a relationship that few understood anyway, unless it was a case of opposites attract.
"I changed. I felt the energy within the company was negative, and I wasn't functioning off it. People in the company were bitter, not to each other, but to the press, to the federation, to the man next door. I said, 'No, no, no!' I can't function off energy like that. The most difficult thing for Linford was I didn't argue with him, we had no row. Linford just wouldn't believe he hadn't done something. Nuff Respect wasn't for me,
and that was it."
But respect is exactly what Jackson is chasing now in that elusive Olympic title, without which, for better or worse, sports history will judge him deficient. At 33, it's his last chance, for although he intends competing for another couple of years, he says he will not take part in another world championships or Olympic Games.
He hasn't had the best preparation, missing the whole early season with an injury, which was later identified and even later rectified. At least he has been able to put in several weeks of preparation, while defending champion Johnson has been having his own late injury problems. However, the main threat to Jackson is likely to be 24-year-old Anier Garcia, of Cuba, who finished a close second to him in Seville last summer, and has beaten him a couple of times this season.
"He's young and excited, he reminds me of myself when I was 22, 23, 24. I remember that excitement of being there and being competitive; you just want to beat people all the time. I can't play catch-up now, but it's easy for me to focus on one event, so it's not a big problem. I'm not getting ready for a season, I'm getting ready for one big race, an Olympic final."
Pat Butcher
Sunday Times
Backley's the nearly man again
Edged out: Great Britain's Steve Backley lost out once again to his great rival, Jan Zelezny, and had to settle for a silver medal in the javelin
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When the final was over, the javelin throwers lingered at the trackside for nearly 15 minutes, mingling and chatting, comfortable in a fellowship which is unusual among elite athletes. Most of them had their own disappointments to deal with, but within the group all of them would have felt for Steve Backley. Silver. Again. After a while the Englishman sat down alone and for a fleeting moment the television cameras caught the tears in his eyes. Konstadinos Gatsioudis, the Greek
thrower, went to embrace him and Backley dredged a smile from the bottom of his heart.
The smile was a face he was wearing. Backley had been part of a titantic javelin final and in finishing second to Jan Zelezny he had been beaten by the greatest javelin thrower in Olympic history, but this morning perspective will seem cold and hollow. Four years ago, too, Backley had been second to Zelezny in Atlanta and twice he has been second to him at world championships. For Backley to bear it as he does is a miracle of grace.
Backley pushed Zelezny hard and the champion had to be on his game to win. Backley's throw of 89.95m in the second round was his longest throw for eight years, less than two metres short of the world record he set 10 years ago. Zelezny fouled his throw in the second round but when his turn came again he rose to Backley's challenge: 90.17m was a new Olympic record, just as Backley's second-round throw had been 20 minutes before.
"I really did believe I had a chance with that throw," said Backley. "I mean that sort of distance doesn't get beaten easily. It takes a very good thrower on a very good day and that's what Jan is. I knew it was going a long way and I was just hoping, when the distance was called out, that it would begin with a nine because that would have intimidated people.
"To be perfectly honest, I probably knew that 89.95 wasn't going to be good enough because Jan was banging. He threw 89 metres in the first round and he just looked as though he was going to throw further than that all the way through really."
After three rounds the 12 finalists were reduced to eight but Backley couldn't muster a final push. His fourth throw was less than 81m and on his last two attempts he fouled: "I felt as though I'd really expended myself, that I'd given it my all early in the competition. I was trying to rally but I just fell flat."
Zelezny is one of the athletic wonders of the age. In Seoul in 1988 he led the javelin until Tapio Korjus plundered the gold with the last throw of the competition. Lesser men might have been broken; Zelezny's response was to win the next three Olympic golds, the first man in history to do so.
Three years ago he underwent a serious operation on his shoulder and the feeling was that he couldn't return the same force as before. Zelenzy defied the concensus. "The shoulder injury was good for me," he said in faltering English at his victory press conference. "Before 1997 I felt stale. After that a lot of people said it wasn't possible that I throw 90m again. They said it wasn't possible that I throw at the Olympics. That was my motivation. If you
look at my shoulder it looks very bad, but it throws very well."
His margin of victory over Backley was only 22cms, but ultimately he was clearly the best man. Two of his six throws would have won gold; another would have been good enough for bronze.
"Jan is such a great competitor," said Backley. "There are so many great things about Jan Zelezney. The fact that he had problems and came back. When he did his shoulder we all thought it was a potentially career threatening injury but here he is. I can't say enough for him."
Three winters ago Backley and Zelezny struck up a close relationship. Zelezny told Backley that he was more gifted than he was but that he "was enjoying life too much." Backley didn't agree but he knew that Zelezny had things to teach him and they became training partners.
Backley said: "I had done a lot of work with John Tower and we had a good handle on the technique that suited me. But after Jan threw 98.48 I wanted to see what his approach to physical training was because obviously he was doing something different. He showed me a new mentality and how hard you have to work. In training I just can't keep up with him. He's just an amazing athlete."
Statistics are often mute to convey greatness but in Zelezny's case they clarify it. The five best throws in history belong to him and the average of his best 100 throws is over 90m. In the Olympic final yesterday he was the only man to exceed 90m. "I knew that I needed 90m to win," he said. "Steve and the other throwers looked good and I was just waiting for my big throw."
For his part Backley didn't solicit our sympathy: "I'll look back and be pleased with how I performed, pleased at how I attacked the competition, pleased at how far I threw - just not pleased I didn't win really. But I've had my days too, you know. It's not as if I've always been second. I have three European golds so it's not as if this has happened every year. But because I know what it's like to win at European level that
makes it more difficult to swallow silver again."
Injury kept Zelezny out of the last European championships two years ago, but on the days Backley won his other European golds Zelezny was trailing in 13th in 1990, 3rd in 1994. In effect every European championship field is as strong as an Olympics or a world championships because all the best javelin throwers in the world are European. But for Backley it is a world of a difference.
Zelezny will be 38 when the next Games come round and for his complaining body another Olympic cycle would be too much too bear. "Four more years?" said Zelezny, "my wife would kill me." And Backley? No doubt. "I can't stop yet," he said. "I've still got to win a global title." What a story that would be.
Dennis Walsh
Sunday Times
