Macey out to add to his silver haul
Dean Macey has a silver medal from Sydney already; it’s just that not many people noticed him winning it.
Four summers ago, in Atlanta Olympic year, Macey made his first mark as an international decathlete by finishing second in the quiet waters of the world junior championships here. Last season he won his second medal, another silver, this time at the senior world championships. One more silver this week would suit him fine.
A local pub near Macey’s home in Canvey Island, Essex, changed its name to the Silver Decathlete in honour of his achievement in Seville last August, when he made it on to the podium unannounced. But it was a temporary name change, lasting only a month. "Nice while it lasted," Macey said. If he comes home second again here, perhaps the landlord might be tempted to adopt the name permanently.
Macey thinks he has a decent shout at second place but barely a whisper at first. Tomas Dvorak, from the Czech Republic, is as much a colossus in the decathlon as Maurice Greene is in the 100 metres and Michael Johnson in the 400 metres. He is the world champion and world record holder, heads the rankings this year, and should be the next significant barrier breaker in world athletics. His world record is six points short of 9,000.
As a reminder of how Macey surprised us all with his performance in Seville, Dvorak recalled today that he was among many who did not know who the young Briton was. "I knew the name but I could not fit the face," he said. There will be no surprises this time.
Macey is now an undisguised target, coming in from the air rather than from behind a bunker.
"When I was here for the world juniors I was not nervous, and I was not nervous for Seville either, but this one is different because I'm expected to do certain things," Macey said. "I have put a certain amount of expectation on myself and this is the first decathlon I have gone into knowing I have a realistic chance of a medal." But it will be only silver or bronze if Dvorak is firing.
"If conditions are good and the crowd get Tomas going, then bye-bye," Macey said. That said, Dvorak has suffered knee and abdominal problems in recent weeks and, although he said he did not expect them to restrict him over this competition, he admitted his training had suffered since he won in Talence in June, a meeting in which Denise Lewis triumphed in the heptathlon.
Having become Olympic champion, in addition to being Commonwealth and European champion, Lewis now has the difficult task of keeping up her motivation. Since Charles van Commenee, her coach, revealed in Talence that Lewis’s target was not one but two Olympic gold medals, she will not lack purpose and drive in 2004. But how will she maintain her concentration in the meantime? Maurice Greene will play a part.
"Denise loves life, so it takes effort to get her back to work, and it is going to be even more difficult after Olympic gold," Van Commenee said. "But I heard Maurice Greene say something interesting here. I heard him say that, to be No 1, you have to train as if you are No 2." That is how Van Commenee will drive Lewis on, drawing heavily on psychology.
But back to Macey. Returning home from Seville with the same colour medal as Lewis, the British pair have travelled a similar uncertain road to Sydney. Lewis found her preparation impeded by Achilles tendon and ankle injuries, while Macey has had to deal with one ailment after another. He can recite them as easily as the ten events on the decathlon programme.
"I had two operations on my right elbow and took a long time to get back from that," he said. "Then I tore my right hamstring, pulled the left one, pulled my left groin twice, and strained my quad." Yet still he has managed to take his training to a point where he believes that he can improve here on his best career score of 8,556 points.
"None of the injuries are playing me up at the moment," Macey said. "There are no excuses, nothing to stand in my way from going out there and scoring well." In case we forget, given his prominence last year, Macey, at 22, is still young for ten events. "If I score a one point personal best I will be happy," he added.
At his first Olympics, Macey went to the track on the night of the women’s 100 metres final. "I wanted to see what it was like before I got out there," he said. "I wanted to get the nervous feeling out of my belly. When I come to set my blocks for the 100 metres, I don't want to be standing there thinking: 'Oh my God'.
"In Seville there was only about 45,000 people in there. Here there are 110,000. As soon as she [Marion Jones] went through the line, that was when I realised what I'm here for - not necessarily for the gold, but to compete for the gold. I got a weird, tingly sensation in my belly for her and I don’t even know the woman.
"If I get that for someone else, goodness knows how I am going to feel when I go through it myself. I want to get out there, get it over, and get on the first flight home."
Home to setting a date for his marriage and the surroundings he misses. Home again to the Silver Decathlete, or whatever name it goes by now. Although the Golden Decathlete sounds rather better.
David Powell
Athletics Correspondent
The Times
Freeman fulfils her nation's dream
Australia’s Cathy Freeman was crowned Olympic 400m champion today, with Britain’s Katharine Merry fending off team-mate Donna Fraser for bronze.
Freeman fulfilled the expectations of the 110,000-strong crowd in the Olympic Stadium and the entire nation as she triumphed to add Games gold to her two world championships.
But Merry added to Britain’s medal charge at the Games with a superb third place, just holding out Fraser for the honour.
Merry shattered her personal best with a time of 49.72 seconds while Fraser also produced the race of her life to finish fourth just 0.07sec off a medal.
Freeman, the silver medal-winner in Atlanta four years, ago won in 49.11 while Jamaica’s Lorraine Graham also set a career-best time of 49.58 to snatch the silver.
Freeman, the first Australian Aborigine to win a world title in Athens in 1997, had been expected to take the gold here ever since Australia were awarded the Games seven years ago.
The 27-year-old - who was dressed head to toe in a green, yellow and white bodysuit - shrugged off intolerable pressure to triumph and set off on a victory lap holding both the Australian flag and that of her indigenous people.
Freeman, unbeaten over the lap for the past two years, did not have it all her own way. She was pressured by Graham and Merry but held them off going to the line to win gold at her third attempt. Now she has set her sights on adding the 200m crown later in the week.
But the bronze was also a triumph for Merry who only stepped up to the distance last year and finished fifth at the world championship in Seville, when Freeman successfully defended her title.
Merry, 26 just four days ago, has also been under a huge amount of pressure in Sydney because of the problems with her banned coach Linford Christie.
But unlike fellow Team Linford members, Jamie Baulch and Darren Campbell, the Birchfield Harrier overcame the pressure to claim Britain’s third medal in the Olympic stadium and the 17th medal overall. Merry was also the first Briton to win an Olympic medal in the event since Ann Packer struck gold in Tokyo 36 years ago.
Merry, who had a brilliant junior career as a sprinter, carved over quarter of a second off the personal best she set in Nice earlier this year.
She was almost caught by Fraser, who had spent a month earlier in the year training with Freeman, and who had sliced almost 0.5sec off her best to follow home in fourth.
Merry said: "It was the most awesome thing I’ve ever done. I wanted to get on the rostrum so badly. I heard all the British people here. It’s hard to explain - awesome.
"I can’t believe the atmosphere; you can’t have a better atmosphere than that. I am so honoured to be representing my country, and I have to mention Donna [Fraser] who pushed me all the way to the line.
"Linford said if I run to the best of my ability I would get on to the rostrum and that’s what I have done. I can’t describe the feeling."
The Times
