Macey anguishes over what could have been
A freak of nature and a word in the ear of the opposition by Daley Thompson cost Dean Macey an Olympic decathlon medal here today. But for Thompson advising an Estonian official to appeal against the disqualification of Erki Nool, the eventual champion, the young Briton may have stepped onto the podium to collect his second successive global championship award.
Also conspiring to rob the 21-year-old of a medal was a headwind in the 100 metres. Chris Huffins, the United States decathlete who finished third, enjoyed the benefit of a 0.4m/sec tailwind while Macey, in a separate heat, was dealt a 1.1mps headwind. The acknowledged effect on times represents a difference of 0.15sec, equating to 34 points. Huffins finished 28 points ahead of Macey who finished in fourth place.
Nevertheless, it was another outstanding effort by Macey, who came second at the world championships in Seville last year. He finished the two days of competition today by knocking 6sec off his best 1,500 metres time in the final discipline. Overall, he registered four personal best marks and scored higher in total than he did in Seville.
After such an effort, finishing fourth was hard to take. Down on his haunches, waiting for the final standings to show on the stadium screen, Macey looked up to see that he had not done quite enough with his Herculean effort. He was not much further away from the silver than bronze. Roman Sebrle, who finished runner-up, was only 39 points ahead.
In a competition where one extra 10cm clearance in the pole vault is worth 30 points, it was all agonisingly tight for Macey. Nool, Estonia’s European champion, scored 8,641 points, Sebrle 8,606, Huffins 8,595, Macey 8,567.
Thompson, the 1980 and 1984 Olympic champion, is listed in the Estonia handbook as Nool’s coach and came to his rescue when, in the seventh event, the discus, Nool registered three fouls. He was disqualified instantly but Thompson, watching with an Estonia official, suggested there were grounds for appeal.
The appeal was successful and the result of it stood, despite a protest from British, Czech and US officials. The grounds for the protest appeared strong as Nool had lifted his foot over the lip of the circle. However, Nool’s reinstatement, which allowed his third and final effort of 43.66m to stand, set him up for a strong finish.
Macey had competed in the first discus group two hours earlier. “I was not in the stadium when it happened but back at my apartment having lunch,” he said. “I have got people out here who are looking after me and appealed on my case [the British protest], so it is only to be expected that Estonia appealed.” If Thompson’s involvement is ironic, so is the fact that Greg Richards, Macey's coach, also advises Nool.
Macey admitted he felt gutted by the fourth placing and lost medal hopes. “I am sick as a dog,” he added. “I said before I came here that if I could walk away with a personal best or fourth or fifth, I would take it. But now it has happened I am gutted. I suppose fourth is not bad considering the year I have had.”
This was Macey’s first decathlon since Seville, having suffered elbow, hamstring, thigh and groin injuries. Two operations to the elbow on his throwing arm followed. He had not thrown a javelin in anger since Seville and, after each of his three throws here, held his arm in response to the pain it was still giving him. His distances were below his best in javelin, discus and shot. “My throwing let me down because I have not been able to work enough on it,” he said.
Before the competition, though, Macey had tried to disguise his shortcomings, saying that he felt fit and there would be no excuses. In the 400 metres, 1,500 metres, pole vault and long jump, he set career bests, with 46.61sec, 4min 23.45sec, 4.80m and 7.77m. A javelin throw of 60.38m left Macey with just too much to do in the last event.
Racewalking suffered its second successive embarrassment as the leading three women in the 20km event were disqualified six days after the first athlete home in the men’s race had endured the same fate. Robert Korzeniowski, from Poland, was awarded victory when Bernado Segura, from Mexico, was judged to have committed three offences.
Breaking foot contact with the ground, or failing to lock the knee, earns one warning. Two warnings is the maximum allowed and Hongyu Liu, from China, Elisabetta Perrone, from Italy, and Jane Saville, from Australia, all fell foul of the regulations today.
Saville's disqualification was especially dramatic as the Sydney competitor was approaching the tunnel, leading by 10sec, when, having been warned twice, she was shown her third red disc. Distraught, she broke into a jog and burst into tears, before collapsing onto a grass verge.
Cathy Freeman, winner of the 400 metres, had long been regarded as Australia’s only prospective champion. Saville, 26th at the last Olympics, in Atlanta four years ago, had improved to the extent of finishing seventh at the world championships in Seville, but she was not thought to have advanced into medal territory.
As Saville reflects on her lost golden moment, she may ask herself why she was pushing so hard as to risk being caught for failing to maintain permanent foot contact with the ground or, as they say in racewalking, "lifting". Lisa Kehler, the sole British competitor, who finished well down, received no warnings. “I was not walking fast enough,” she said.
With pacesetting walkers from China, first, and then Italy, disqualified, prior to Saville, Liping Wang, from China, took the gold medal in 1hr 29min 05sec. Saville made no attempt to suggest she had been unfairly disqualified. “That’s racewalking,” she said.
David Powell
The Times
Campbell has keys to the kingdom
When Michael Johnson and Maurice Greene pulled up injured during the 200 metres at the United States Olympic trials in July, thereby failing to qualify for the event here, it was widely assumed that Ato Boldon, the former world champion, would be the man to benefit. Yet, in a race as extraordinary as Johnson’s world record run at the last Olympics was magnificent, Boldon ended up third. Darren Campbell thought that beating Boldon would give him the gold medal. It didn’t.
In the shock of the athletics programme so far, Konstantinos Kenteris, a little-known Greek, joined some of the greatest names in Olympic history as 200 metres champion. In 1936, it was Jesse Owens, in 1984 it was Carl Lewis, in 1996 Johnson. Now it is Kenteris, who in the Who’s Who in Olympic Track and Field 2000 guide rates as only a minor entry under 400 metres, whose greatest successes were a third place in the European Cup at 400 metres and fifth in the European indoor championships at 200.
If Kenteris’s victory ranks as one of the biggest upsets in Olympic history, Campbell’s second place was as much of a surprise to Britain as the bronze achieved by Kelly Holmes in the 800 metres on Monday. For, as Campbell admitted: “The 100 is supposed to be my better event.” He had finished sixth in that, a race in which Boldon was third. Having said that, from a rank outsider before the 200 metres began, Campbell established himself as a medal contender with his second round and semi-final performances.
"After the second round I thought I could win it," Campbell said, having jumped, in that race, from fifteenth on the British all-time list up to third with 20.13sec. In the semi-final he was only fractionally slower and, with Boldon running a poor race, thus earning himself the disadvantageous outside lane for the final, Campbell, starting the Games with a career best time of 20.48 seconds, suddenly looked like the man to beat.
Small wonder, then, that Campbell, having led the race off the bend, and been overtaken by Kenteris only at the threequarters mark, was devastated at the finish. His anger as he crossed the line quickly turned into to tears and he sank to the track. For minutes, it seemed, he hardly moved. When he got up he went to Christian Malcolm, his team-mate, and cried on his shoulder. Boldon, a gentleman in defeat, went over to console Campbell.
Given an hour to compose himself, Campbell began to look on the brighter side. “A medal is a surprise, a bonus,” he said. “I came here wanting to make the final in both events.” At 27 now, come the next Games, he will still be younger than Linford Christie, his coach, was when he won the Olympic 100 metres title at 32. For Christie, this was a second medal from athletes he coaches. He also trains Katharine Merry, who won a 400 metres bronze.
Christie has been found guilty by the world governing body of failing a drugs a test and, on that, Campbell said: “It has been a really difficult time for him. We have worked hard together.
This is for him.” Kenteris also dedicated his victory elsewhere, saying it was in memory of those who had died in the Greek islands boat tragedy this week, in which more than 60 people died.
Kenteris, 27, rejected the view that his victory was a shock, despite having a previous best time of only 20.25sec, albeit faster than Campbell’s quickest before the Games. “I feared nobody,” he said.
“I am surprised only that you are surprised.” This was like a reunion of the class of ’92 when, at the world junior championships in Seoul, Boldon won, Campbell was second and Kenteris was sixth. Where had the Greek been in the meantime?
"I had a lot of injury problems,” he said. “But, during the last two years, I have been training hard, so here I am.” And, instead of Britain celebrating the first Olympic 200 metres champion in its history, Greece was. Nevertheless, Campbell becomes the first Briton since Allan Wells, in 1980, to win an Olympic medal at the distance.
As they had gone to their blocks for the start, Campbell had a concentrated look reminiscent of the famous Christie stare. His was not the quickest of starts but neither was Boldon’s or Kenteris’s. Malcolm, though, got away well but, typically, his bend running was not up to standard. He ran a good straight, however, to finish fifth in 20.23sec. Kenteris timed 20.09, a Greek record, Campbell 20.14 and Boldon 20.20.
Britain will have two representatives in the final of the women’s 1,500 metres on Saturday after Holmes and Hayley Tullett each came through the first semi-final untroubled. However, Helen Pattinson, the European Cup champion, was eliminated in the second semi-final.
Holmes, although she appeared to be running comfortably, said that, after five races in a week, the load was beginning to take its toll. “I was really tired today and I woke up this morning thinking 'what am I doing here'” She said she was placing no expectations on herself for the final. But didn’t she say that before the 800 metres?
David Powell
The Times
