SYDNEY COUNTDOWN

Maurice Greene has been clamoring for a chance to take on Michael Johnson at 200 meters.

Marion Jones wants to prove she can be the first track and field athlete to win five gold medals at one Olympics.

Well, it’s showtime for the stars of U.S. track and field.

Greene, Johnson and Jones will get their opportunities starting Friday at the Olympic trials in Sacramento, which determine the American team for the Sydney Games. The top three in each event will qualify, provided they meet the Olympic qualifying standard.

The rambunctious Greene and the reserved Johnson have been the most dominant sprinters in the world in recent years.

Greene is the world record-holder at 100 meters, the two-time world champion in the 100 and the 1999 world champion in the 200. Johnson is the Olympic champion and world record-holder in the 200 and 400, and has won both events at the World Championships, including the 400 four consecutive times.

The two were scheduled to meet in the 200 at last year’s U.S. Pro Championships in Uniondale, N.Y., but Johnson withdrew because his grandmother died. Then they were set to meet at the USA Championships in Eugene, Ore. Again, Johnson withdrew, this time because of a last-minute hamstring injury.

Now, there shouldn’t be any excuses for their first confrontation since the 1998 Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Ore., where Greene won the 200 and Johnson, bothered by leg injuries, finished third.

‘He knows I can beat him on any given day,” Greene said. “He can say he wasn’t healthy, but if you’re healthy enough to get in the race, you’re healthy enough to get beat.

‘Michael Johnson is a great athlete. If people call him Superman, well, I am Kryponite.”

Surprisingly, Greene lost two 100 races last week, then said he was tired and sore after competing four times in seven days, with three of the races in Europe.

The 200 final at the trials will be run July 23, the last day of the eight-day competition at 25,000-seat Hornet Stadium, and Greene’s 26th birthday.

“I told Maurice, ‘Give Michael a gift for your birthday-don’t try to beat him,’ ” Emanuel Hudson, Greene’s agent, said jokingly.

Johnson, 32, dismisses Greene’s comments as those of a brash 25 year-old.

“I think Maurice isn’t mature enough because he hasn’t been in the sport to understand that bragging and talking isn’t going to make him feel better,” Johnson said.

“I’m still the world record-holder

in the 200 meters who has run 19.3. I’ve still probably got a good 20 times faster than his fastest 200.”

In fact, Johnson, who set the world record with an astonishing 19.32 at the 1996 Olympics, has run nine races faster than Greene’s best of 19.86. He also has run the 200 under 20 seconds 21 times to Greene’s six. But Greene has been running the 200 only since 1997, while Johnson has been a 200 runner since 1987.

Greene is attempting to become the first sprinter since Carl Lewis in 1984 and the ninth overall to sweep the 100 and 200 at the same Olympics.

Johnson became the first man to sweep the 200 and 400 at the 1996 Atlanta Games, and now is trying to become the first athlete to win both events in consecutive games and the first man to win the 200 or 400 in consecutive Olympics.

“When you’re on top, you’re the guy everybody is shooting for,” Johnson said. “You’re under pressure. I enjoy running when the pressure’s on me.”

Like Johnson, the confident Jones is trying to make history.

She is chasing Olympic gold in the 100, 200, 400 relay, 1,600 relay and long jump. She will compete in the 100, 200 and long jump at the trials.

No track and field athlete has won five gold medals in the same Olympics. Lewis in 1984, Jesse Owens in 1936 and Fanny Blankers Koen of the Netherlands in 1948 are the only ones to win four.

Despite showing flaws in the long jump, the 24-year-old Jones has not backed off her ambition for an unprecedented five.

“I want to do something that no body’s ever done,” she said. “I want to be remembered when I’m long gone.”

For her to reach that goal and even make the U.S. team, she will have to be more consistent in the long jump.

Favored to win the event at last year’s World Championships in Seville, Spain, Jones finished third.

This year, she has finished fourth, a second, first and third, ending a five-meet losing streak last month at the Prefontaine Classic with a a leap of 22 feet, 10 1/2 inches, her best in about 1 1/2 years.

“I’ll be the first to tell you my long jump needs work,” Jones said.

“My specialty is running.”

That she does especially well.

Only Florence Griffith Joyner has run the 100 and 200 faster than Jones.

Other 1996 individual Olympic gold medalists entered in the trials are Allen Johnson (110 hurdles), Charles Austin (high jump), Dan O’Brien (decathlon), Gail Devers (women’s 100) and Derrick Adkins (400 hurdles).

O’Brien, the world record-holder and three-time world champion, has competed only twice this year following surgery on his left knee last July.

‘He thought he could bounce back from the operation in four to six weeks,” coach Rick Sloan said of O’Brien. “But he’s been training very well lately.”

O’Brien also is encouraged, despite performing poorly in both meets.

‘My leg is strong,” he said. “I just need, to train correctly and not hold back in any way.”

O’Brien is optimistic about his chances at the trials.

‘My goal just isn’t to go there and make the team,” he said. “I want to win.”

One of the most intriguing entries is that of Jackie Joyner-Kersee, the 1988 Olympic long jump and heptathlon champion and 1992 heptathlon gold medalist.

Joyner-Kersee, 38, who is entered in the long jump, has not competed since retiring in 1998.

‘A gold medal always was a major goal,” she said about her desire to return to competition.