It’s hardly a bolt from the blue, unless you read only American newspapers. Jones has always had trouble with the long jump; the trouble being that she can’t do it. Her technical flaws are so blindingly obvious, a person who had never watched athletics before would know at once that there was something badly amiss.
She lands standing up - well, slight exaggeration. She lands in a bent-kneed crouch, round about the position Ian Botham used to adopt at second slip. It is amazing that she can jump so far when she lands like a Harrier jump-jet. She has such fantastic speed on the runway that it carries her a good way into the sandpit.
But it didn't carry her the extra 8cm she needed to go past Heike Drechsler, who gave an exhibition of controlled grace and power to take the gold medal. Silver went to Fiona May, of Derby, who got so fed up with the way the now-defunct British Athletic Federation was treating her that she became an Italian, marrying her Italian boyfriend in the process.
Jones probably had the sped and power to win on Friday night, but she couldn’t maximise her considerable advantages. Up like a rocket and down like a stick - defying every principle of the sport.
It’s about leg-shoot. Long jumpers touch down with their bums as low to ground as they dare, with their legs as far in front of them as possible. As they land, they hurl their bodies forward to overtake their feet, because it is the most backward mark in the sand that is measured from. Flopping back is a disaster.
No danger of that happening with Jones. Chance would be a fine thing. She lands in this stiff-legged, awkward, half-upright posture - like a girl in the playground trying to do what the big girls are doing and succeeding only in looking silly.
She is coached in all five events by Trevor Graham. She owes him great loyalty, she says, because he was the one who took her on when nobody else was interested. Jolly good; does her credit.
It does Graham no credit whatsoever. It was, no doubt, a traditional case of coach’s vanity, and coach’s jealousy. A coach seldom wants an outsider in this intense two-way relationship. No doubt to both of them, the idea of a specialist long-jump coach seemed an infidelity. Forsaking all other; forsaking her expected royal flush of golds.
Heike Drechsler’s victory is a truly great achievement. Drechsler won the long-jump gold medal at the world championships in 1983 at the age of 18. She was a product of the East German hot-house system, and that is an experience that would have soured another person for life. She missed the Atlanta Games in 1996 with a knee injury that really should have ended her career. But here she is, still leaping. She has cleared 7m more than 400 times in her life; amazingly, she didn’t need to do so today.
Afterwards, Jones was in sombre mood, but very gracious. "The most positive thing I can take from all this is that in 30 years' time I’ll be telling my grandkids about how I jumped with one of the greatest jumpers of all time," she said, and it is hard to do better than that. She will go ahead with her plans to run in the two relays, no doubts on that score. And she will continue with the long jump afterwards: "I’m not going to crawl into a shell and decide I’ll never to do the long jump again," she said.
Drechsler was just as charming in victory: "Marion is a great fighter, and if she gets a little more rhythm on the runway, she can jump even farther."
It was a low-key ending in what was, to be frank, a low-key competition in difficult conditions, jumping into a headwind. Jones finished with two no-jumps, with four no-jumps in her set of six, which is really handicapping yourself. Her fifth jump looked pretty big, but they don’t count them when you put your foot in the plasticene. Jonathan Edwards wan his gold in the triple jump by demonstrating control at speed. Jones won the bronze by demonstrating uncontrolled speed.
She is very cast down, as well she might be at the end of a wild dream. Jones is such a spectacularly talented athlete, there really was never going to be anybody come close to her in the sprints, and she won both by colossal margins.
She is the fastest thing since Florence Griffith-Joyner, who won three golds and a silver in Seoul in 1988. She might yet finish in triumph by beating the achievements of Flo-Jo, but the sad thing is that triumph will always be tarnished by the one that got away.
Tearful El Guerrouj denied again
Hicham El Guerrouj had managed to hold back his emotions until he came to explain how his little sister had asked him to bring her back the gold medal. “I said I would and I have deceived her,” El Guerrouj said, tears now streaming down his face at his post-race press conference. All of Morocco was crying with him.
El Guerrouj, unbeaten at 1,500 metres and the mile since 1997, during which time he has broken both world records, was beaten to the Olympic title here by Noah Ngeny, a young Kenyan who, during his three months a year living in London, likes to shop at Tesco and idle away time watching MTV. For a touch over 3½ minutes yesterday, idling was the last thing on his mind.
In one sustained sprint down the home straight, Ngeny wiped out Sebastian Coe’s Olympic record time and put El Guerrouj into the same basket as Steve Cram. Like Cram, who 15 years ago set the 1,500 metres and mile world records that El Guerrouj holds now, the Moroccan has been unable to add the Olympic title. He is to move up to 5,000 metres next year.
The closest that Cram came was in Los Angeles in 1984, when he finished within a second of Coe, whose time, 3min 32.53sec, stood as the Olympic record for 16 years until yesterday. Ngeny - pronounced knee-yen - was content to stay behind El Guerrouj until they came off the final bend, passing him in the last 30 metres and recording 3:32.07.
How little the race seemed to take out of Ngeny. He did not stop to catch his breath as he crossed the line, shaking his arms above his head in triumph even before he had slowed to a jogging pace. It was his first victory over El Guerrouj and a rare defeat for the Moroccan, all the harder to take for the ill fortune that probably denied him the Olympic title in Atlanta four years ago.
On that occasion, El Guerrouj went in as favourite but fell coming to the bell after tangling legs with Noureddine Morceli, the Algerian who went on to win. Since then, El Guerrouj had lost only one race, to the unheralded Robert Andersen, a Kenyan-born Dane, in a slow race decided in a sprint finish at the 1997 grand prix final. He has won 51 of his last 54 mile and 1,500 races, losing two Olympics and a grand prix final.
Two days before the final here, the King of Morocco had been offering El Guerrouj encouragement on the telephone. “He said he had confidence in me, so there was a lot of pressure because, in Morocco, everybody is thinking about the Olympics,” El Guerrouj said. “It was difficult to face this pressure before the final.” One of the first questions he was asked was how 13 million Moroccans would react to his failure.
”What I say to all of Morocco is that they need to trust me,” El Guerrouj said. “They need to trust my qualities. I am still the same old Hicham. I hope next year you will see that.” Gracious in defeat, he added: “I congratulate Noah. He has excellent qualities and ran a beautiful race. You need to accept defeat as well as victory. I am pleased with my medal.”
El Guerrouj, 26, said he would move up to 5,000 metres next season. Ngeny, 21, will now be seen as the athlete to move the world record on. He was the architect of the last one at the mile, pushing El Guerrouj under the mark held by Morceli on a memorable night in Rome two years ago. It is rare these days to see a middle distance world record fall when pacemakers give way to a genuine race.
Ngeny’s unexpected presence on the last lap, and race for home, saw El Guerrouj across the line in 3min 43.13sec. Ngeny clocked 3:43.40, still the second fastest mile on record. Yet, two seasons on, he was still seeking his first win over El Guerrouj. In the British Grand Prix at Crystal Palace this summer, he trailed him by almost two seconds.
To most eyes, Youssef Baba looked to be playing the role of pacemaker. Asked how Olympic finals and pacemaking were compatible, El Guerrouj preferred to put it another way. “We did not have a rabbit, we did a Moroccan race and somebody sacrificed himself for the other,” he said.
Passing 400 metres in 54.14sec, Baba was way too fast and the second lap slowed to outside 60 seconds. The field bunched up and this probably led to El Guerrouj’s downfall. Accelerating over the last 200 metres, he was unable to open a gap and Ngeny sat in before kicking for home.
Managed by Kim McDonald, a London agent, Ngeny spends three months a year training at Kingston track and Bushey Park. His break came when Moses Kiptanui, the former world steeplechase champion, spotted him and recommended him to McDonald, for whom Ngeny is just the latest of many Kenyan champions.
In other finals yesterday, Reuben Kosgei, another Kenyan aged 21, won the 3,000 metres steeplechase and Kamila Skolimowska followed Robert Korzeniowski’s win in the 50 kilometres walk with Poland’s second gold medal of the day in the women’s hammer.
Nick Hysong won the men’s pole vault for the United States, claiming to have acquired the taste for vaulting using broomsticks in his backyard. Different, at least, from the usual Kenyan story of youthful interest stimulated by running school.
David Powell
The Times
Olympics comes to a close
Donna Fraser was in a fiery mood. “Forget the men,” she said the other
day. “Look at us.” Fraser was talking specifically about the 4 by 400
metres relays but she may as well have been referring to the entire
last session of Olympic track programme here today (Sat). On their
best form, and given reasonable luck, the British women will
outperform the men at the Olympics for the first time in a
generation.
Already the collective effort of a gold medal from Denise Lewis, and
bronzes by Katharine Merry and Kelly Holmes, represents the best
women’s team performance since the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. The
prospects for adding to that tally appear good with British women in
three finals today. Paula Radcliffe goes in the 10,000 metres, Holmes
in the 1,500 metres, with a strong quartet, led by Merry and Fraser,
lining up in the 4 by 400.
Only once, courtesy of Ann Packer and Mary Rand in 1964, has the
British women’s team won more than one gold medal. Not since Mary
Peters won the pentathlon in 1972 have the women made a greater
contribution than the men to Britain’s final position in the medals
table. “It shows we can produce people of the highest calibre and,
although we still have work to do, there is no reason why we should
not produce more,” Max Jones, the Great Britain team performance
director, said yesterday.
”I am sure the 13 and 14 year olds seeing Kelly Holmes, Denise Lewis,
and people like them will think ’yes, I want to be part of that
sport’, whereas, if we had not performed here, and won no medals,
there would have been no role models for them. It will give a lead to
the girls back home and the under-23 team.”
The concern has been that British women’s athletics comprises a few
outstanding athletes but little in between them and run-of-the-mill
internationals. However, the gap is being filled, as the arrival of
Hayley Tullett with Holmes in the 1,500 metres final, suggests.
Furthermore, the Great Britain team for the world junior
championships in Santiago next month is the first from in any age
group in which women’s squad has outnumbered the men’s. “That is
bound to filter through to senior level,” Jones added.
On the immediate business, the only British men on show today are the
4 by 400 metres team, who have done well to reach the final, while
the women’s relay squad look seriously strong medal contenders. One
of Britain’s main rivals, Russia, almost failed to make the final
yesterday when, gambling on resting their best two runners, they
squeezed through only narrowly.
Without Irina Privalova, the 400 metres hurdles champion, and Olga
Kotlyarova, a 400 metres finalist, Russia failed to qualify
automatically and, as the slowest fastest losers, edged out Belarus
by only 0.25sec. Britain won the second semi-final in 3min 25.28sec,
with Jamaica just behind.
The United States won the opening semi-final in 3:23.95, Nigeria
recording the fastest time to win the third semi in 3:22.99. Britain,
the US, Jamaica and Nigeria appear to be the four contnders for gold
with Australia the outsiders for a medal. The big guns missing from
the semis are set to come in, Cathy Freeman for Australia, Marion
Jones for the US, Lorraine Graham for Jamaica, Falilat Ogunkoya for
Nigeria, Privalova for Russia.
Graham finished runner-up to Freeman in the individual 400 metres,
with Merry third and Fraser fourth. Not tempting the fate that befell
Britain last year, when Merry was rested for the semi-final and the
team failed to qualify, both she and Fraser ran yesterday. Allison
Curbishley and either Helen Frost or Natasha Danvers will make up the
four.
Now that Jones’s drive for five gold medals has become four,
predictably, she might have to settle for three, or even two. Jamaica
may be strong for the US in the 4 by 100 metres while the 4 by 400
looks open between four countries. Max Jones went for caution
yesterday. “If somebody offered me the bronze, I would take it,” he
said.
This has been a splendid Olympics so far for the races beyond one lap,
with close finishes in the men’s 800 and 10,000 metres and the
women’s 5,000 metres. Radcliffe must ensure that it does not come
down to a sprint for her, something at which she is notoriously
lacking, so word from Gete Wami, the Ethiopian who denied her the
world title in Seville last year, that the pace is likely to be quick
throughout, is encouraging.
A field which also includes Sonia O’Sullivan, Fernanda Ribeiro,
Derartu Tulu, who have all won international championship 10,000
metres titles, unlike Radcliffe, promises a race as absorbing as the
one in Seville last year, when the Briton gave such a courageous
performance. Radcliffe’s training form suggests she is at least as
quick now.
O’Sullivan is seeking a second medal for Ireland, having finished
runner-up to Gabriela Szabo, from Romania, in the 5,000 metres. Szabo
is chasing a double, lining up as the marginal favourite to win the
1,500 metres. However, if Suzy Favor-Hamilton, adopts the forcing
tactics she employed to almost beat Szabo in Eugene this season, the
Romanian may feel vulnerable.
Holmes sees those two as the main contenders. “Szabo, Hamilton, em...I
am not saying my own name,” Holmes said. Nobody is expecting Holmes
to win a second medal, but nobody expected her to win one at 800
metres. “I have achieved what I came here for, getting into two
finals,” she said.
David Powell
The Times
