Boldon Sends a Swift Message

Ato Boldon is back.

It might sound ludicrous to say that about someone who won the 200 meters in the world track and field championships in Athens, Greece, last year, but Boldon felt like he had to reestablish himself in the 100 in the Mt. San Antonio College Relays on Sunday.

He definitely did that by clocking a scintillating 9.86 seconds before an estimated crowd of 8,500.

The time was the fastest in the world this year, a meet record by .07 seconds and moved the former UCLA sprinter into a four-way tie for third on the all-time world list.

Only Canadian Donovan Bailey, who clocked a world record of 9.84 to win the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, and American Leroy Burrell, who timed 9.85 in 1994, have run faster than the 24-year-old Boldon. And no one has run as fast this early in the year.

“I told [Coach John Smith] that if the wind was anywhere near [two meters per second], it was going to be a world record,” Boldon said of his first 100-meter race of the year. “I felt like I was in that kind of shape, based on practice.”

The win was Boldon’s second in three years at Mt. SAC and bettered his previous best of 9.87 from last season. That time had come in a quarterfinal heat of the World Championships in Athens, but leg cramps had slowed the Trinidad record-holder to a fifth-place time of 10.02 in the final.

American Maurice Greene, one of Boldon’s training mates on the high-powered Hudson Smith International team, won the gold medal in 9.86, but that couldn’t wash away Boldon’s disappointment.

“My name had disappeared from the 100 guys,” Boldon said. “I get on the Internet a lot and there was a lot of talk about Bailey and Greene, but not me. I wouldn’t say I resented it, but I know what my ability is and I wanted to get back in there.”

He took a big step on Mt. SAC’s newly resurfaced track by bursting out of the starting blocks, keeping his head down for the first 40 meters and then roaring to the finish.

A tail wind of 1.8 meters per second was nearly ideal as the maximum for record purposes is 2.0.

Smith, a longtime assistant coach at UCLA and the No. 1-ranked quarter-miler in the world in 1971 for the Bruins, wasn’t surprised by Boldon’s performance.

“I saw this in training,” Smith said. “You kind of want to know what all the training means and this tells us.”

The meet got off to an ominous start for Boldon and his HSI teammates in the 400 relay.

Jon Drummond, who has run 9.92 in the 100, led off the team that also included Greene, Boldon and Danny McCray, but pulled up after 40 meters and fell to the track in pain clutching the right side of his lower back.

The extent of Drummond’s injury wasn’t known, but Boldon and Greene were able to put it behind them as Boldon ran his 9.86 and Greene clocked a world-leading 20.03 in the 200.

The time was short of the sub-20 clocking that Greene had predicted, but he was still pleased.

“I have to be proud of it,” he said. “It’s my first 200 of the year and I ran 100%.”

Boldon and Greene were two of four gold medalists from the 1997 World Championships competing.

The others were Americans John Godina and Marion Jones.

Godina, the two-time defending world champion in the shotput, won that event with a world-leading put of 71 feet 5 1/2 inches and the discus at 218 feet. It was the second consecutive year in which he won both events.

Jones, the 1997 world champion in the women’s 100, made a rare appearance in the 400 and won in 50.36, the second-fastest in the world this year.

Inger Miller had a hand in three victories, winning the women’s 100 in a wind-aided 10.84 and running legs on Vector Sports teams that won the 400 relay in 42.55 and the 1,600 relay in 3:30.65.