Jones Races to the Victory, but Not the Record in 300

It turns out the official world record in the women’s 300 meters isn’t so soft after all.

That became apparent Sunday afternoon in the Mt. San Antonio College Relays at Walnut when Marion Jones, the Queen of the Olympics in Sydney last fall, fell short in her bid to break the world record at that distance.

Jones, who became the first woman to win medals in five track and field events in the same Olympics, posted a runaway victory in the seven-runner field, but her time of 35.68 fell short of a pair of 35.46 clockings by Kathy Cook of Great Britain and Chandra Cheeseborough of the U.S. in 1984.

Cook and Cheeseborough had finished third and second, respectively, in the 400 in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Yet many track experts felt that their co-record in the seldom-run 300 were ripe for the taking by Jones.

After all, the 25-year old Jones won the 100 and 200 by gargantuan margins in Sydney and helped the U.S. women win the 1,600 relay by breaking the race open on the third leg.

A head wind on the backstretch hampered Jones’ record attempt, but she emphasized afterward that the 300 is a gut-wrenching race.

“I run it in practice,” she said. “I know it’s a hell of a race. It’s tough. It’s a bit out of my element. But I wanted to challenge myself.”

Jones opened up her three previous seasons by winning the 400 at Mt. SAC and won the prep portion of the event as a freshman and sophomore at Oxnard Rio Mesa High. So she wanted to try something different this year.

Chandra Sturrup, a training partner of Jones in North Carolina and the sixth-place finisher in the 100 in Sydney, entered the 300 in an attempt to give her some competition.

It was all Jones once the starters’ pistol was fired.

She had a three-meter lead after the first 100 and a five-meter advantage after coming through the 200 in an unofficial 22.9. She tightened up a bit, however, in the final 50 meters.

“I came off the last turn feeling really good,” she said. “I broke down a little bit but that’s to be expected because I’m a 200-meter runner. . . . [Coach Trevor Graham] said before the race, ‘That once you hit 250, you’re going to start to feel fatigued. That’s a given so try to maintain your technique. Try to take it to the finish line.’ I thought I did that.”

Tyree Washington, Breaux Greer, John Godina, Bernard Lagat and Lawrence Johnson were other noteworthy winners in a meet that suffered a setback when Maurice Greene didn’t run in the 400 relay.

Greene, the Olympic champion and world-record holder in the 100 at 9.79, ran on the Handling Speed Intelligently’s 400 and 800 relay teams in the Texas Relays on April 7, but recently felt a twinge in his leg.

An HSI team of Jon Drummond, Bernard Williams, Ato Boldon and Danny McCray won the 400 relay in 38.73, but that was well off the 37.88 clocking that a Greene-anchored team ran in Texas.

Washington won the men’s 400 in 44.47 after being slowed by injuries in 1999 and an asthmatic condition last year.

“I was trying to get 44.3, 44.4, 44.5,” he said of his race. “I’m real happy with today.”

Washington’s time, the fastest in the world this year, defeated runner-up Hamdan Al-Bishi of Saudi Arabia by more than a second and was doubly impressive because he had to battle a stiff backstretch wind.

Greer, the Olympic trials javelin champion, won that event with a career best of 276 feet 4 inches, second best in the world this year.

Godina won the shot put at 70-0 1/2, the farthest put in the world this year.

Lagat, Olympic bronze medalist in the 1,500 meters for Kenya, won the mile in 3:55.40 after winning the 5,000 meters in 13:30.54 on Friday night.

Johnson, the world indoor champion in the pole vault and the silver medalist in Sydney, won that event at 19-0 3/4.

Tim Mack and Russ Buller finished second and third at the same stadium-record height, but Johnson won because he cleared the height on his first attempt.

Mack cleared it on his second attempt and Buller on his third.

In other events, Bernard Williams won the men’s 100 in 10.08, Boldon won the 200 in an eased-up 20.76, Mark Crear won the 110 high hurdles in 13.51 and Melissa Morrison won the women’s 100 hurdles in a wind-aided 12.82.