Johnson, Greene Out

Too much heat, too much heat in one heat, too much talk, too much riding on 200 meters. By the time Michael Johnson and Maurice Greene finally lined up for their climactic mano a mano Sunday afternoon at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials, their contents-under-pressure footrace had been on the boil far too long for customary safety standards.

Something was bound to give and, sure enough, about 50 meters in, the race exploded.

There on the curve of the Hornet Stadium track lay Johnson, sprawled on his back and screaming in anguish, his hands wrapped around a badly cramped left hamstring.

Fifty meters farther up the track, Greene was hobbling on one foot, limping out of the race with a strained left hamstring.

The two fastest men in the world, attempting to race 200 meters, and, combined, they barely covered 150.

At the finish line, the U.S. Olympic men’s 200-meter team was being assembled, and if anyone laid down this trifecta at a Las Vegas sports book, the investigation commences immediately:

First place: John Capel, best known as a bench-warming wide receiver at the University of Florida before coming here and bombing out in the 100-meter semifinals, leading the depleted pack with a time of 19.85 seconds.

Second place: Floyd Heard, 34 years old, never before better than seventh at the Olympic trials, breaking a 13-year-old personal best--he ran 19.95 in 1987--to finish a step behind Capel at 19.95.

Third place: Coby Miller, fresh out of Auburn, overrun in the 100 meters here, also breaking 20 seconds to come in at 19.96.

As for Greene and Johnson, a.k.a. The Fastest Gums in the West?

Try as they may, they won’t be able to talk their way into the 200-meter field in Sydney. With USA Track and Field offering no wild cards and no injury exemptions, Greene and Johnson ended their Olympic 200-meter campaigns Sunday. Both have qualified in other events--Greene at 100 meters, Johnson at 400--and, provided their leg muscles have healed by then, they will run only for one individual gold medal apiece in Sydney.

“It’s a sad situation,” Greene said after receiving treatment on his leg. “Me and Michael didn’t finish the race everybody wanted to see . . . I wanted to win the 200 in Sydney. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to do that. But, hey, I’m still alive.”

Both Johnson and Greene said they expected to be ready in time for the Olympic track competition, scheduled to begin Sept. 22. Johnson described his injury as a cramp, not a strain or a tear, and said: “I’m now focusing on the 400. And if I focus on the 400, I’ve got to think about running 42 [seconds]. That’s all I’ve got left.” Greene said trainers told him he had a slight strain. “I still need a doctor to look at it, but, hopefully, I didn’t tear it,” he added. “I’m still going to the Olympics in the 100.”

The women’s 200 final, by comparison, was a joy run along the Sacramento River. No one fell, no one failed to finish and the two best runners in the field--Marion Jones and Inger Miller--finished as was expected, in first place and second.

Jones, having already won titles in the 100 and the long jump, made it three U.S. championships in three events as she won the 200 final in 21.94 seconds, the fastest time in the world this year. Miller was next at 22.09, followed by Nanceen Perry, who completed the team with a third-place time of 22.38.

By quirks of the draw, both 200 competitions featured matchups between the top two runners in the field. Jones and Miller also raced in the semifinals, in side-by-side lane assignments. Jones also won that race in a time of 22.08, ahead of Miller’s 22.40.

“I think so much emotion went into the semifinal, it felt like a final,” Jones said. “I was pooped. I had to regroup and go back out there 90 minutes later and do it again. It was tough.”

Too tough for Johnson and Greene, as it developed. They too raced side-by-side in a loaded semifinal heat that also included Capel, Coby Miller and Mike Marsh. Capel won the heat in 20.03 seconds, with Johnson, running cautiously, placing second at 20.14 and Greene at 20.30.

Neither Johnson, nursing a sore right quad, nor Greene seemed to be troubled in the semifinal, but the depth of the competition, coupled with midday temperatures nearing 100 degrees, eventually took a serious toll.

“That heat scared the life out of me,” said Capel, referring to degree of talent in that semifinal eight-pack, not the degrees on the thermometer. “Did you see that heat? Aside from Floyd, that was the final.”

Johnson’s body was up to one 200 amid those conditions, but two was one too many.

“I started cramping real bad as we were lining up before [the final],” Johnson said, “but as I loosened up, I felt it might go away. Halfway around the curve, I felt it again, this time the left hamstring, and you saw the rest.”

Actually, there wasn’t much more to see, once Greene started wincing and hopping up and down. The most hyped footrace in memory, described somewhat over-enthusiastically by NBC’s Dwight Stones as “the most anticipated matchup in American track and field since the ‘Dream Mile’ between Marty Liquori and Jim Ryun,” ended with its two heavyweights dumped into the same statistical dustbin:

DNF.

Did Not Finish.

“I think we should all learn a lesson from this,” Johnson said. “Let’s stop these so-called ‘two-man races.’ Who knows who’s going to win the final? You all speculated it was going to be Michael and Maurice, and all you did was [tick] off those other guys. And they went out and ran fast.”