Track and field events set for breathtaking dramas
By S. Harmono
JAKARTA (JP): After nearly one week of chaos and disruption at the Atlanta Olympic Games, sports enthusiasts have yet to see the best of the two-week event, track and field -- the core of the Games -- scheduled to begin on Friday.
Athletics has undeniably been a source of durable and continual interest at the Olympics for over 100 years. It is an Olympic branch that towers above all the others, because it objectively records human achievement in terms of time and distance. In this respect, games depending on judges and scores are of relative value only.
The drama that unfolds in athletics is breathtaking: the flying Finn Paavo Nurmi around 1920; Jesse Owens winning four gold medals in front of Adolf Hitler in Berlin in 1936 when the Fuehrer blatantly refused to shake hands with the black American because he was obsessed with Aryan superiority; the Czech locomotive Emil Zatopek around 1950; the German Armin Hary, who reacted to the pistol shot three times quicker than other runners and became the first man to clock 10.0 seconds flat in the 100- meter dash; and the Ethiopian palace guard Bikila Abebe, who won the marathon in two successive Olympiads. These are just some examples of events which make the Olympic week in athletics so exciting.
Athletics has shown a development that completely shatters Hitler's theory on Aryan supremacy.
In running nowadays, nearly everybody who wins is black: the Afro-Americans -- who have been there since Jesse Owens and before -- for distances up to 400m, and the Africans for longer distances.
The exception is the middle-distance events, which tend to be won by runners from the Maghribi countries Algeria and Morocco.
In the non-running numbers, the company is mixed. Current world record holders are Cuban Javier Sotomayor in the high jump (2.45m), American Mike Powell in the long jump (8.95m), Briton Jonathan Edwards in the triple jump (18.29 m), while Eastern Europe has a near monopoly of the throwing events.
Historic double
This year in Atlanta, Georgia, the 100m dash does not look so interesting to watch as it used to. Linford Christie and Carl Lewis are well past their prime to make good times.
Many predict they will not even be among the finalists. It is unlikely that a world record breaking time of below 9.80 seconds will be made, not even 9.85. It will be between 9.90 and 9.99, with Donovan Bailey, Bruno Surin, Frankie Fredericks, Ato Boldon, and perhaps Mike Marsh and Leroy Burrell the strong contenders for the gold.
All attention will go to Michael Johnson's bid for a historic double in 200m and 400m. The American world champion in both distances shaved six hundredths of a second off Italian Petro Minnea's 17-year-old record of 19.72 in the 200 last month.
Despite the upset loss to Namibian Frankie Fredericks in Oslo just 10 days before the Olympics, talented Johnson, with strangely shaped legs, has all that it takes to break the Olympic (19.73/43.50) as well as the world records (19.66/43.29) in both events.
To all appearances, these will be the most spectacular events of the athletics' meet in Atlanta.
No less important are the middle distance events. Algerian Noureddine Morceli will probably dominate the field. He has currently four world records to his credit: the 1500m, the mile, the 2000m and the 3000m. Only two of these are run in the Olympics: the 1500m and the 3000m. Unlike Moroccan Said Aouita some years ago, Morceli seems to be in good shape to finish first.
The Ethiopians and possibly Kenyans are still forces to reckon with in these distances -- especially in the 5000m and 10000m -- and the marathon.
No Kenyan could stop Ethiopian Haile Gebraselassie when he broke the 5000m and 10000m world records last year. His closest rival for the 5000 is Kenyan Moses Kiptanui, the only man who ever ran the 3000m steeplechase under eight minutes at 7:59.18.