9.79

Maurice Greene finally caught up to the 100-meter world record he has been chasing, and he left it in his dust.

Greene’s time of 9.79 seconds Wednesday at an invitational meet for the world’s top sprinters in Athens beat the record Canadian Donovan Bailey set at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics by 0.05 seconds.

And in a significant milepost for track and field, Greene’s record finally equaled the voided record Ben Johnson set at the 1988 Seoul Olympics before he was stripped of the gold medal for testing positive for steroid use.

“That makes Ben Johnson history,” said Don Potts, a track and field historian who lives in Goleta. “I’m 77. I didn’t believe I’d see it. I thought I’d be dead before anyone ran 9.79 [without wind].”

Bailey, not Johnson, has been the target in Greene’s sights.

Greene and fellow sprinter Ato Boldon, who train together under Coach John Smith at UCLA’s Drake Stadium, boldly predicted Bailey’s record would fall last year.

They talked the talk, but neither one ran the race until Wednesday.

“I expected it. This is only the beginning,” said Greene, who turns 25 next month. He also holds the world indoor record at 60 meters and tied Bailey’s 50-meter indoor record at the Sports Arena in February.

Smith spoke to the new 100-meter world-record holder by phone after the race and described Greene’s mood in two words: “Total bliss.”

Conditions at the Athens stadium that will host the 2004 Olympic Games were “ideal,” Smith said.

“No wind, 80 to 85 degrees. It was 8 or 9 at night, and there were a lot of good sprinters who run under 10 seconds.”

Boldon, the former UCLA sprinter from Trinidad and Tobago, was second at 9.86 and Canada’s Bruny Surin was third at 9.97.

Greene’s unofficial time was flashed as 9.78 before the official time was set at 9.79.

The crowd gave Greene a standing ovation as the native of Kansas City, Kan., looked around for an American flag to wave, but couldn’t find one.

“This is a special place for me,” said Greene, who won the 1997 world championship in Athens in 9.86, his previous best allowable time.

Greene’s record-setting race came only three days after Bailey returned to competition following surgery to repair a ruptured Achilles’ tendon. Bailey ran a 10.51 Sunday in Nuremburg, Germany, failing to move past the preliminaries.

“Records are made to be broken, and I congratulate Maurice on a great run,” Bailey said in a statement posted on his official Web site. “Now I have a new motivation to take the 100-meter record back. I look forward to the challenge.”

Greene will defend his title in Seville, Spain, in August, and Smith said Greene’s goal is to double in the 100 and 200.

Greene arrived on the national scene when he beat Carl Lewis in a wind-aided 9.88 in 1995, but failed to qualify for the Atlanta Olympics. Shortly after, he moved to Los Angeles to train under Smith.

“He said, ‘When are we going to have practice?’ and I asked him one question,” Smith said. “ ‘How good do you want to be?’ He said, ‘I want to be the best.’ I said, ‘Can you take everything I throw at you?’ And he said he could, so I told him to be there in the morning.”

Now Greene is the undisputed best.

“I think of it as being sub-9.8. I never think of Ben Johnson,” Smith said. “But what I think it means is people will realize you can run as fast as you need to run. You can do it. All the other athletes need to know the power to run fast is in your mind.

“It shows it’s possible to do it. When you make your mind up you want to do something, it can be achieved. Humans have shown that over and over. The sub-four-minute mile, sub-3:50 mile. Now we’re under 13 seconds in the hurdles, over 60 feet in the triple jump, over 29 in the long jump. And there are more horizons to follow.”

Fastest Times

DATE: TIME

1999: 9.79

1996: 9.84

1996: 9.85

1991: 9.86

1991: 9.90

1988: 9.92

1983: 9.93

1068: 9.95

1960: 10.0

1956: 10.1

1936: 10.2

1030: 10.3

1921: 10.4

1912: 10.6

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Sprint Kings

Evolution of the men’s 100 meters world record this century (in seconds): *--*

Time Name, nationality Date 10.6 Donald Lippincott (United States) July 6, 1912 10.4 Charles Paddock (United States) April 23, 1921 10.3 Percy Williams (Canada) Aug. 9, 1930 10.2 Jesse Owens (United States) June 20, 1936 10.1 Willie Williams (UnIted States) Aug. 3, 1956 10.0 Armin Hary (West Germany) June 21, 1960 9.95 Jim Hines (United States) Oct. 14, 1968 9.93 Calvin Smith (United States) July 3, 1983 9.92 Carl Lewis (United States) Sept. 24, 1988 9.90 Leroy Burrell (United States) June 14, 1991 9.86 Lewis Aug. 25, 1991 9.85 Burrell July 6, 1994 9.84 Donovan Bailey (Canada) July 27, 1996 9.79 Maurice Greene (United States) June 16, 1999

*--*