World 100m record holder Usain Bolt
PARIS: Beijing Games organisers will be hoping that the exciting crop of competitors in the blue riband event of athletics can dispel the sordid spectre of doping and provide a feast of top-class sport.
Certainly, there is a raft of big-name draw cards and record-breakers for whom the stage is set to shine, despite worries about pollution levels in China’s capital city at a time when temperatures and humidity are expected to be sweltering.
Defending men’s 100 metres champion Justin Gatlin will not be one of them, however, after failing in his bid to overturn a ban for testing positive in a drugs test.
Doping returned yet again this year to cast its ugly shadow over athletics, with five-time Olympic medallist Marion Jones jailed and stripped of her medals for lying to investigators about her use of performance enhancing drugs.
In the same case, Dennis Mitchell, Antonio Pettigrew and Jerome Young, all former Olympic gold medal relay runners on US teams, each admitted doping on Jamaican-born coach Trevor Graham’s advice.
US Olympic leaders vowed to send no dope cheats to the Beijing Olympics, with US Olympic Committee chairman Peter Ueberroth saying extra measures beyond a greater number of doping tests had been taken to ensure a squad not using performance-enhancing drugs.
On the track, American double world sprint champion Tyson Gay will be under pressure from the Jamaican duo of Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell.
Bolt surprised everyone by breaking the 100m world record set by his compatriot, the 21-year-old running 9.72s in New York on May 31. But he has always said the 200m would be his main focus at Beijing.
“I prefer the 200m, I have been dedicating my life to that event,” Bolt said. “I would really like to win the gold medal.
“It will be up to my coach whether I double up or not. I have been with him for four years and he has made nothing but good decisions. I’m sure if he decided not to go for the 100m then it would be for a good reason.”
Another crowd-drawing race will be the men’s 110m hurdles. China will have defending Olympic champion Liu Xiang in the line-up and still smarting from losing his world record to Cuban rival Dayron Robles, who shaved one-hundredth of a second off the previous record in clocking 12.87s.
“When the world record is broken it is a concern for him (Liu),” Robles said, adding that he expected Liu to still be a force to be reckoned with in Beijing — not least because of the home crowd.
The middle-distance running events look sure to be dominated by Ethiopians, notably Kenenisa Bekele and Tirunesh Dibaba, who go into the Games at the height of their form and at the top of their disciplines.
Bekele, the 2004 Olympic champion and triple world champion over 10,000m who also took a silver over 5,000m in the Athens Games and holds the world records in both events, snagged an unprecedented sixth world cross title this season.
It is not clear whether he will be going for the double, but one rival in the 10km race could well be compatriot Haile Gebrselassie.
The former four-time world champion and double Olympic champion over 10,000m, who is the world record holder in the marathon but suffers asthma, has shunned the longer distance event over fears about the pollution, heat and humidity.
“In Beijing, no marathon,” he said. “I don’t compete in the marathon in these conditions.
Competing at Hengelo in May, Gebrselassie recorded a time of 26:51.20, the second fastest of the year over 10,000m, and is in prime position for a spot in Beijing. — AFP
Article source:
