It’s 0.01 Degree of Separation

Maybe the only disadvantage of being the world’s fastest man is that everyone expects you to break the 100 meters world record each time you run. There certainly was that anticipation when Maurice Greene steadied himself in the starting blocks for the final Sunday night on an Estadio Olimpico track that has proven as scorching as Seville’s hot August nights.

As the BBC commentator summed up in his prerace analysis, “The track is fast, the men are fast, the conditions are perfect.”

Greene is no different from everyone else. He obviously was telling himself virtually the same thing, and when he looked at the scoreboard after the race and saw his time, he snapped his fingers in disappointment and said, “Damn!”

He had run only a 9.80, one-hundredth of a second off his world-record time of 9.79 seconds.

But what could have been . . .

Before track and field’s seventh World Championships began Saturday, the conventional wisdom was that Greene had everything going for him except the competition to push him.

Ato Boldon, who trains with Greene in Westwood and is the only person to beat him this year, was out with a sore tendon. Donovan Bailey, who held the world record until Greene broke it in June, is also injured and will run only a relay here. Then Frankie Fredericks withdrew from Sunday’s semifinal because of a thigh injury.

As it turned out, Greene waspushed plenty. Canada’s Bruny Surin had him until they reached the 70-meter mark and finished second in 9.84, which would have equaled the world record nine weeks ago.

Greene has no one to blame for his failure to break the world record except himself. He was overeager at the start, causing him to stumble slightly as he emerged from the blocks.

If not for that, Boldon estimated Greene would have run a 9.78.

In contrast, even though Marion Jones was--like Greene--a defending champion in the 100, no one expected her to break the world record in winning her final Sunday night. Florence Griffith Joyner set it in 1988 at 10.49 seconds, which might stand for two or three more decades.

But if FloJo was faster, you can argue that Jones already has had a better 100 career at age 23. She has run under 10.80 11 times compared with four for Griffith Joyner.

Jones’ time Sunday night was 10.70. Her only faster time was a 10.65 last year. Considering that came at altitude, this race might have been her best.

It certainly was the best field ever. For the first time, six women in the final ran under 11 seconds. None, however, threatened Jones.

Inger Miller, a former USC Trojan who now trains in Westwood with Greene and Boldon, set personal bests in the second round at 10.86 and the semifinals at 10.81 and then did it again in the final at 10.79 and finished a soundly beaten second.

Still, she emerged encouraged--”I’ve stepped up. We could have a real good rivalry going for 2000”--and finally convinced she made the right move when she switched coaches from her father, former Jamaican Olympian Lennox Miller, to John Smith last January.

It was not an easy time for anyone, although Smith said he had Lennox’s blessing.

“So you wouldn’t be concerned about sitting in his dentist’s chair?” Smith was asked. Lennox has a practice in Altadena.

“You mean like ‘Marathon Man?’ ” Smith asked, referring to the famous scene in the movie when Sir Laurence Olivier tortures Dustin Hoffman with a drill.

“No,” Smith said, “I wouldn’t be afraid.”

Jones said she welcomes the challenge from Miller or any other other sprinter.

“This is wonderful for women athletes,” she said. “You consistently have women running fast times. It’s no walk in the park anymore.”

Somebody had to speak up for the women.

Reporting on the women’s pole vault competition from Saturday night, won by American Stacy Dragila when she equaled the world record, the International Amateur Athletic Federation’s official Web site said:

“With a seemingly endless line up of pinup girls, the women’s pole vault has been a breath of fresh air. From the strawberry blonde Emma George to those leggy blondes from Germany; from Grigorieva with the tattooed tummy to the doll like Balakhomova, the pole vault is set the become THE athletic catwalk of the new Millennium.”

Adding insult to insult, Dragila was paid only half of the $60,000 awarded to other gold medalists because the women’s pole vault is a first-time event.

“At least they didn’t give me half a gold medal,” she said.

The United States had no medals in the first event concluded Saturday, the men’s 20-kilometer walk, then won four in a row over two nights--C.J. Hunter in the shotput, Dragila, Jones and Greene--before the streak was broken.

In the final two events Sunday night, France’s Eunice Barber won the heptathlon and Germany’s Karsten Kobs won the men’s hammer throw. He celebrated with a dip into the water on the steeplechase course.

It was an entertaining evening, featuring Greene and Jones in the 100s, Michael Johnson in a 400 heat and Morocco’s Hicham El Guerrouj in a 1,500 semifinal. But it attracted only 39,430 spectators to the new, 60,000-seat stadium built, Sevillians hope, for a future Summer Olympics.

They are rabid sports fans who perhaps were overextended Sunday.

Sevilla, one of the city’s two first division soccer teams, was kicking off at 9:30 p.m. in its 60,000-seat stadium across town, about an hour and a half after the bullfights in the famous Plaza De Toros. Although only novice matadors were on the card, aficionados were interested in seeing one of the young kids up from Toledo.

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Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com