Greece's Kenteris Shows He Can Run a Mean 200

By MIKE PENNER

Sept. 29, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SYDNEY, Australia —

So what was that playing out Thursday at Olympic Stadium? Day 6 of the Olympic track and field competition . . . or John Rocker Night?

Where was the fine print that read: Bring your best racist comment to the meet, go home with an Olympic medal?

Konstantinos Kenteris of Greece upset Ato Boldon, John Capel and Obadele Thompson to win the men’s 200-meter final, becoming the first Greek man to win an Olympic track gold medal since 1912, then left international journalists shaking their heads as an interpreter translated Kenteris thusly:

“From the moment I stepped into this country, I realized the others didn’t have anything better than me. I knew I had a chance, especially as there were five black runners and I was the only white.”

Kenteris might have been attempting a joke. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, something might have been lost in the translation.

But there was no misunderstanding Australian men’s long jump silver medalist Jai Taurima, who ignited a bushfire of controversy two weeks before the Games when he disparaged the three African-Americans on the U.S. long jump team, saying, “You can pretty much knock out all the dark athletes” competing in the cold weather of Sydney.

Under pressure from Australian Olympic officials, Taurima apologized for his comments in early September. But when he was asked after winning his silver medal if he regretted making those remarks, Taurima looked the questioner blankly in the face and spat out two words:

“No comment.”

If there is such a thing as a cosmic court of justice, then it was in session Thursday. After five rounds, Taurima was in first place, basking in the glow of a personal-best mark of 27 feet 10 1/4 inches.

Then Cuba’s Ivan Pedroso took his sixth and final jump. Result: 28- 3/4.

And with that, Pedroso, who is dark-skinned, knocked Taurima out of a gold medal.

Pedroso’s last-chance comeback was the virtuosic counterpoint to a downright bizarre 200-meter competition. Marion Jones won the women’s gold medal, as expected, with a time of 21.84 seconds, but everything else was off the charts.

* Pauline Davis-Thompson of the Bahamas, in her fifth Olympics, won the silver medal behind Jones, then entertained the media with a comical rambling dissertation on sports bras, a geography lesson about her homeland and a prediction, made with Jones seated to her immediate left, that the Bahamas will smoke the United States in the women’s 400-meter relay.

* Susanthika Jayasinghe of Sri Lanka won the bronze medal in the 200 and then bitterly waved the accomplishment in the face of the Sri Lanka track and field federation, accusing federation officials of sexual harassment and duplicity surrounding her controversial suspension for a urine sample she believes was tampered with.

* Australia’s Cathy Freeman, trying to double after winning the 400-meter gold, finished a distant seventh in 22.53, nearly seven-tenths of a second behind Jones.

* Kenteris became the first Greek male in 88 years to win an Olympic track and field gold medal. The drought goes back to 1912, when Kenteris Tsiklitiras won the men’s Olympic championship . . . in the standing long jump.

* Boldon, considered a shoo-in for the 200 gold after Michael Johnson and Maurice Greene blew out hamstrings at the U.S. Olympic trials, placed third with a time that was four-tenths of second slower than his bronze-medal finish in 1996. Boldon ran only 20.20 on a night when 20.08 would have won him the gold. Boldon ran 19.80 in Atlanta and has a personal best of 19.77.

Instead, the title went to Kenteris, running an unspectacular time of 20.09, with Britain’s Darren Campbell taking the silver in 20.20.

Two Americans not named Greene or Johnson also raced in the final, and they finished last and next-to-last. John Capel, the most impressive runner throughout the qualifying heats, got off to a horrendous start--he later claimed a false start, but the judge failed to call it--to place eighth in 20.49. U.S. teammate Coby Miller came in just ahead of Capel in 20.35.

Somewhere, Johnson and Greene were cringing. Had they both held up through 100-degree heat in Sacramento and qualified for the U.S. 200-meter team, they might have placed 1-2 in this final running backward.

Johnson has run under 20 seconds 23 times during his career--and has bettered 20.09 in six of his last eight 200-meter races. Greene ran 20.02 in June and won the 1999 200 world championship with a time of 19.90.

Which is why Boldon, the 1997 world champion, figured as the prohibitive favorite in Sydney. No Johnson, no Greene, no worries, right?

“I did think the race would be easier for me without Maurice and Michael,” Boldon said. “But I also knew that nobody was going to automatically give me a gold medal.

“I’ve had only two sub-10s [at 100 meters] all year, so I know this has been a subpar year for me.”

Boldon appeared to have the look of astonishment on his face when he crossed the finish line and saw the so-so winning time of the scoreboard. “No,” Boldon corrected, “exhaustion was more like it.”

Jones coasted to victory, beating runner-up Davis-Thompson (22.27) by 0.43 of a second--the largest margin of victory in an Olympic women’s 200 final since Wilma Rudolph’s triumph in Rome in 1960.

It was Jones’ second gold medal in as many events--a substantial achievement on its own. But in the scope of Jones’ bid for five gold medals in Sydney, it represents a mission only 40% accomplished.

“As you all know, I’m here for greater things than just two golds,” Jones said. “I’m here to show you I can walk away from Sydney with five golds.”

No. 3 is up for grabs today with the women’s long jump final. After that, Jones will run legs Saturday in the women’s 400- and 1,600-meter relays.

It is there, Davis-Thompson predicts, where Jones’ drive for five will sputter.

“Let’s put it this way,” Davis-Thompson said, appointing herself spokeswoman for the Bahamas’ 400-meter relay team. “We were the 1996 Olympic silver medalists and we were the 1999 world champions and we are still the underdogs here. It’s just going to make our victory just a little sweeter.”

Jones nodded, smiled and replied, “Nobody said it was going to be easy.”

Davis-Thompson, 34, has run for the Bahamas in five Summer Olympics dating to 1984. Delighted that she finally made her debut on the medal podium, Davis-Thompson giggled as she recounted her long road to success and how she overcame the odds and her own, well, unique physical endowments.

When Davis-Thompson was a 14-year-old running in Nassau, she said she was “big-busted and I had a big butt. My coach said, ‘You’re never going to make it.’

“So we drove all over Nassau and she found me the worst sports bra. It was red. You had to strap it on. It felt like I was suffocating in that thing. . . . Of course, it worked.” Jayasinghe became the first Sri Lankan to win an Olympic track and field medal since 1948, representing a national federation she has feuded with since a 1998 out-of-competition urine sample tested positive for steroids.

Jayasinghe has maintained her innocence all along, fighting a long legal battle that resulted in the charges being dismissed.

The battle began, Jayasinghe said, after “the man who is the sports minister [of Sri Lanka] wanted to have sex with me. I say, ‘No, I’m married.’ ”

Jayasinghe believes that incident led to Sri Lanka federation officials framing her after taking an out-of-competition sample in April 1998 and refusing to seal the bottle while she was present.

“The test came back positive,” said Jayasinghe, who contends the sample was tampered with. “This makes no sense. I am a clean girl. I never fail any drug test before.”

In 1999, Jayasinghe moved to Los Angeles, where she trains with coach Tony Campbell. She then vowed never to return to her homeland, but to compete in the Olympics, she first had to participate in Sri Lanka’s Olympic trials.

A reporter asked Jayasinghe why she hadn’t changed her citizenship and run instead for the United States.

“You can fix this?” Jayasinghe replied quizzically. “I don’t have a sponsor. I don’t have any money. I’m from a small country.”

Today, Jayasinghe said, the Sri Lanka federation “is crying. They gave me trouble, trouble, trouble. On October 2, when I go back [to America] with the bronze medal, they are going to be sad.”

In Thursday’s other finals:

DECATHLON: First, 1996 Olympic champion Dan O’Brien of the United States was forced to pull out of the U.S. Olympic trials because of a foot injury. Then 1999 world champion Tomas Dvorak of the Czech Republic arrived in Sydney with an ailing knee.

Suddenly, the Olympic decathlon competition was thrust wide open, enabling Erki Nool of Estonia to win his country’s first gold medal with 8,641 points, edging out Dvorak’s Czech teammate Roman Sebrle (8,606 points) and the United States’ Chris Huffins (8,595).

Nool averted disaster when his appeal over a foul in the discus competition was upheld. Nool had fouled twice previously and a third foul would have left him with no mark and no points. But officials overturned the third foul on appeal and Nool earned 739 points from the event.

Huffins held the lead after nine events, but he is a notoriously weak 1,500-meter runner. Even with a personal-best 4:38.71, Huffins placed 17th in the 1,500, dropping him to third place in the final overall standings.

“When I crossed the finish line, being the pessimist I am, I thought I’d come in fourth,” Huffins said. “I’m ecstatic. I came here to win a medal and it didn’t really matter what color it was.”

Dvorak finished sixth with 8,385 points.

WOMEN’S SHOTPUT: Yanina Korolchik of Belarus won the gold medal with an effort of 67 feet 5 1/2 inches. Larisa Peleshenko of Russia was second at 65-4 1/4, with 1996 Olympic champion Astrid Kumbernuss of Germany taking third at 64-4 1/4.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Medal Winners

Men’s 200 Meters

Gold: Konstantinos Kenteris

Silver: Darren Campbell, Britain

Bronze: Ato Boldon, Trinidad and Tobago

Men’s Decathlon

Gold: Erki Nool, Estonia

Silver: Roman Sebrie, Czech Republic

Bronze: Chris Huffins, United States

Men’s Long Jump

Gold: Ivan Pedroso, Cuba