U.S. Is Head of Sprint Class

Maurice Greene won the men’s 200 meters, Inger Miller won the women’s 200 and the United States again rules the short sprints. I say again, but, actually, this is the first time in seven World Championships that Americans have won all four gold medals in the 100 and 200. They’ve done it only three times in the Olympics.

I know it was predicted in Seville. That didn’t mean it was going to happen, especially on a sun-baked, concrete-hard track like the one inside Estadio Olimpico.

Run seven rounds on that within six days, as Greene and Miller did in the two events before Friday, and your legs start to talk back when your brain signals it’s time to go to work.

Of the two, Greene was more favored in the 200 than Miller when they arrived here. Michael Johnson was entered only in the 400, and Frankie Fredericks had a thigh injury, which, ultimately, forced him to withdraw before he reached the starting line in Friday night’s final.

Nigeria’s Francis Obikwelu looked threatening through the first three rounds, running the fastest time (19.84 seconds) in Wednesday’s semifinals. His legs were fresher after not competing in the 100, but he doesn’t have Greene’s experience.

In the last World Championships, in 1997 in Athens, Greene was winning the 100 while Obikwelu was a 16-year-old world junior champion struggling to reach the semifinals.

This is the first time he has been expected to compete with the best in a major championship, and his inexperience showed as he left his best race on the track before the final.

Greene won in 19.90, Brazil’s Claudinei Da Silva was second in 20.0 and Obikwelu was third in 20.11.

Greene, 25, cried on the victory stand, a more emotional reaction than he had after the 100 victory Sunday night. But he pointed out that he cried when he won the 100 in Athens. By now, especially after setting the world record this summer, he is used to being the man in that event. It’s new for him in the 200.

So is he the man in the 200?

He seems to think so. Johnson doesn’t intimidate him and neither does his world record time of 19.32.

“Michael is not the only one who can run that fast,” Greene said.

Miller’s story is different. She was expected to medal here in both events, but the golds were supposed to go to Marion Jones. Jones won the 100, finishing comfortably ahead of the second-place Miller, and then collapsed in the 200 semifinals with back spasms, probably caused by her overly ambitious schedule on an unforgiving track. In between the 100 and the 200, she won a bronze medal in the long jump.

Without Jones in the final, Miller became the favorite. She came through in 21.77, well ahead of Jamaicans Beverly McDonald (22.22) and Merlene Frazer (22.26) and Germany’s Andrea Philipp (22.26).

You have to go back to Wilma Rudolph’s victory over Germany’s Jutta Heine in 1960 to find a margin of victory as great in the women’s 200 in either the Olympics or the World Championships.

Miller’s time also was her personal best by far, coming after she set three personal bests here in the 100. But it’s not as fast as Jones’ personal best of 21.62, and Miller, 27, acknowledges that she will not be recognized as the woman in the sprints until she beats Jones.

Miller hasn’t done that since 1990, when she was the star senior at Pasadena Muir and Jones was a precocious freshman at Rio Mesa in Oxnard.

When they met that spring at the Arcadia Invitational, Miller was told she had better beat Jones then because it might not happen often in the future. Sure enough, Miller won that day but hasn’t done it since.

Through her years at USC and after, Miller failed to reach the potential that everyone swore she had. Finally, she and her father agreed last December that she should change coaches.

That wasn’t an easy decision because her father was her coach.

Dr. Lennox Miller, who won the Olympic silver medal for Jamaica in 1968 and the bronze in ’72 in the 100, was more frustrated than she was. But with a dental practice in Altadena, he didn’t have more time to devote to her training than he was giving.

He was supportive when she sought out John Smith, a contemporary of his who has become recognized as one of the world’s best coaches with his UCLA and HSI (Handling Speed Intelligently) athletes in Westwood.

Smith was eager to coach Miller, whom he has known since she was a baby, but she had to be voted into the HSI club by the other 20 or so members, including Greene, Ato Boldon, Jon Drummond and Marie Jose Perec.

That’s not a foregone conclusion in some cases. One athlete, Brian Howard, was voted down when he tried to join this year. Only after sending e-mails stating his case to the other members did they vote again and let him in.

“It’s a lazy man’s way of managing,” said Emanuel Hudson, who manages the club out of his Irvine office. “I don’t have to deal with my athletes bickering. I let them manage themselves.”

Miller was voted in, but that was merely the beginning of her initiation. She had never experienced anything like the trash talking she heard from her new teammates.

“It was OK,” she said. “I can hold my own.”

It was the perfect atmosphere for her.

“We had been working out alone, and that was a burden for her,” Lennox Miller said this week. “Now she’s part of a club where the athletes talk together, work together and pull for each other.

“Inger also realizes now that you have to put in 100%. It’s a lot different for me to be telling her she ought to do that and for her to see it being done by her teammates.”

Inger’s times have improved. So, she said, has her relationship with her father.

“Now I just have him as a great dad,” she said. “I don’t have to split him up between Dad and Coach. I think he likes it better too. He can sit in the stands now and relax. He’s not as stressed as he used to be.”

He might not agree. If you see him today before one of his daughter’s races, he still looks as though he’s sweating bullets. There’s no question he knows what it’s like to sit in a dentist’s chair.

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