Short and Windy Road to a Top Effort

It is not remarkable that Maurice Greene won the 100 meters in Tuesday night’s Goodwill Games. It is remarkable that Ato Boldon and Donovan Bailey put themselves in positions to finish behind him.

Track and field, excepting those athletes who stuff themselves up to their spinning eyeballs with dianabol, stanozolol or whatever other banned drug is in vogue, remains the purest sport, providing a forum for some of the world’s best athletes to test themselves against each other in such fundamental disciplines as running, jumping and throwing.

Sadly for that dwindling number who continue to love the sport no matter how badly it abuses us, the best athletes too seldom accept that challenge, finding, like boxers, that it is more lucrative to avoid each other. They have discovered that they can run and hide.

For that reason, Tuesday night at Nassau County’s Mitchel Athletic Complex was one to celebrate, a night when three of the world’s four fastest men came together to run the 100 meters.

There was Greene, the world champion from Kansas City; Bailey, the world record-holder from Canada; and Boldon, the Olympic bronze medalist from Trinidad.

Except for the absence of Namibia’s Frankie Fredericks, the race resembled an Olympic final, one of the rare events when the sport’s best are compelled to compete against other, because the supporting cast included highly credentialed runners such as the United States’ Dennis Mitchell, Jon Drummond, Tim Harden and Brian Lewis and Canada’s Bruny Surin.

It would be nice to report that so many outstanding sprinters were here because, in a year in which there are no Olympics or World Championships, they sought a mutually acceptable venue to begin settling this year’s No. 1.

Although that could be a byproduct, especially if Greene also runs well in possible future duels in Paris and Zurich, it is more probable they came for the money.

Exposure in the United States was a factor, with the 12,000-seat Mitchel Athletic Complex located in such close proximity to the nation’s media capital and Madison Ave.

But the real lures were the undisclosed appearance fees for Greene, Boldon and Bailey-- although Fredericks called the amount he was offered “insulting”--and $100,000 in prize money, $40,000 for first place.

Goodwill Games officials also offered a $100,000 bonus for a world record, even though they realized it would be virtually impossible to collect because the finish line had been placed at the south end of the track, all but assuring the sprinters would have to run into a persistent wind.

When John Smith, who coaches Greene, Boldon and Drummond for the HSI club in Westwood, complained, he said he was told by officials that headwinds are overrated as a nemesis for sprinters.

Interpretation: It was too late to reverse the start and finish lines because of the location of the television tower and electronic timing equipment.

No matter how fierce a wind they were likely to face, Boldon and Greene blew harder.

As members of the same club, they have double teamed Bailey in a war of words. It began as banter, designed to attract attention to themselves and the sport, but turned into a feud when the Canadian insinuated during interviews last winter that Greene and Boldon were drug users.

In a reflective moment last week, Boldon said, “The sport with the most talking, probably, is boxing, and sprinters probably rank second. You know, a lot of times when we talk, we’re trying to convince ourselves as well. If I convince myself, I’m not concerned with convincing someone else. The reality is, you step to the line with seven guys with equal ability, you have to have the mindset that you cannot lose.”

Before the race, Boldon was convinced “Donovan Bailey doesn’t break 10 seconds and somebody in HSI breaks the world record.”

Greene predicted he and Boldon both would run faster than 9.8, easily eclipsing the world record of 9.84 seconds set by Bailey two summers ago in Atlanta.

They talked the talk, and, as it turned out, they ran the run.

Greene and Boldon easily finished ahead of the rest of the field, leaving Bailey so far behind that he let up in the final 50 meters and practically walked across the finish line, a badly beaten seventh. Lewis, Drummond, Mitchell and Surin also finished ahead of the Olympic champion.

“When your car runs out of gas, you put it in neutral,” Boldon said.

But Greene and Boldon could not defy the two mile-per-hour wind in their faces, their times of 9.96 and 10.0 belying their fitness.

Although it is difficult to calculate the effect of a headwind, Smith said he believes Greene would have run 9.88 if the wind had been still and, with a similar tailwind, a record 9.82.

“That’s one of the most impressive races I’ve ever seen,” he said.

It no doubt was enjoyed by a respectable crowd of 9,756, including Evander Holyfield.

“It could be a hot summer,” Boldon said. “Frankie’s hot, I’m hot, Maurice is hot.”

Asked if Bailey is no longer a factor, Boldon said, “You’ll have to ask him that.”

Bailey said he will see Greene and Boldon next week in Paris.

Let’s hope so.