Maurice Greene defeats Justin Gatlin at US Open (© Kirby Lee)
Crystal Palace, London Even without Marion Jones, who pulled out of the meeting earlier this week, the Norwich Union London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace on Friday night still features six athletes who are heading to Athens in three weeks time to defend their Olympic titles, plus a host of world champions and world leading performers in 2004.
Top of the bill will be the first clash of the season between sprinting’s come-back cannonball, Maurice Greene, and the man who replaced him as world 100m champion last year, Kim Collins. While it will be Collins’ third race on a British track this summer, Greene is making his first appearance here for two years against a field that includes the cream of the 100m IAAF Event Ranking.
The last, in 2002, was one the Olympic champion will want to forget – he stumbled out of the blocks and ended up third behind Dwain Chambers and Tim Montgomery – but he’ll have better memories of 1999 and 2001 when the Crystal Palace crowd saw “Mo” in thrilling sub-ten form.
Having been virtually written off after such a poor 2003, Greene sent renewed shudders through the sprinting world earlier this month when he thundered to a 9.91 victory at the US Trials. Never one for understatement, Greene’s post-race comment in Sacramento was typically swaggering: “Greatest of all time – what can I say?” he said. “I think I proved I will take some beating again this year. I worked so hard to win the Olympic crown I am not going to give it up without a fight.”
On Wednesday this week he was in even more confident mood, saying: "You can put your house on me running under 10 seconds. I am looking more like an Olympic champion again. In the last couple of years I have struggled with injuries but I have always said when I lose there is an excuse. There will be no excuses this time.
"People have written me off too easily recently and that has only made me determined to prove them wrong and do better than ever."
Collins, of course, is used to such talk. “Macho guys like Maurice bring a lot of rivalry to the sport,” he told one British paper recently. “They say the same old things, but that rolls right over me. This is not a debate – talking can’t help you against me.”
By contrast, Collins won’t even contemplate being called the best in the world, just “the most consistent”. “And I know how to win the big ones,” says the Commonwealth champion. “Maurice will look upon me as the guy to beat in Athens – mainly because I am World champion.”
Greene may be back in sub-ten territory but he is far from unbeatable, as shown by his defeat by Portugal’s Francis Obikwelu in Paris last Friday. Collins is vulnerable too – he does not even feature among the 20 quickest men this year, if we discount his windy 10.02 (+3.2 m/s) run in Arlington in March, unlike a number of other sprinters in the Crystal Palace line-up, including the Jamaican record holder Asafa Powell, Greene’s US teammate Justin Gatlin, and the world 200m champion John Capel.
All three have broken 10 seconds this year, while the in-form Ghanaian Aziz Zakari, who ran 10-dead in Stockholm on Tuesday, is also in the field. With such an array of international talent Britain’s hopeful trio of Darren Campbell, Jason Gardener and Mark Lewis-Francis will be hard pushed even to make the final on Crystal Palace’s newly re-laid £1.5m track. Of the three, Lewis-Francis is still the fastest this year, although Gardener snatched victory in the trials. Campbell, however, finished a disappointing sixth in Stockholm.
Even before his current return to form, Greene has long been a legend of the sport, and on Friday Crystal Palace will witness what could be the last appearance on a British track of another all-time great – Haile Gebrselassie.
Since winning his second Olympic title four years ago, Geb has lost both his world 10,000m title and his two most cherished world records, at 5 and 10k – all to the incredible Kenenisa Bekele. That won’t stop him pulling out all the stops to win an unprecedented third 10,000m gold in a few weeks time, one last tilt at a track title before he dons the new mantle of a dedicated marathon man.
At the Palace Gebrselassie, who has to settle, at present, for third place in the IAAF Event Ranking for 5000-10,000m, is expected to win a form-freshening 5000 from a field that includes Kenya’s Boniface Songok, Morocco’s Abderrahim Goumri and fellow Ethiopian Abiyote Abate, but it will be fascinating to see whether some of the emperor’s old sharpness has returned.
The same could be said of Maria Mutola’s appearance in the women’s 800m. The once invincible Mozambican has lost a bit of her million dollar shine this year, having relinquished her unbeaten streak in Lausanne, and finished 15th and last at 1500m in Paris, albeit struggling with a hamstring injury.
Mutola, who still leads the 800m rankings, will face Britain’s world indoor bronze medallist Jo Fenn as well as Morocco’s Mina Ait Hammou, while her friend and training partner Kelly Holmes (second in the rankings) goes in the 1500m. Holmes, who produced a stunning victory over two laps against Jolanda Ceplak, the fastest in the world this year, at Birmingham on Sunday, will hope for a similar boost to her confidence over the longer distance in London.
Another athlete hoping for a repeat of Sunday’s performance will be Yelena Isinbayeva. The Russian took the women’s world pole vault record up one more notch in Birmingham, and you wouldn’t bet against her doing the same again at Crystal Palace, especially as there’s another $50,000 reward on offer.
Of course, she could just as easily lose it again too – most likely to her Russian rival Svetlana Feofanova, but possibly to the reigning Olympic champion Stacy Dragila. Britain has been a happy hunting ground for the two Russians in recent years, while Dragila has not produced her best form in the UK.
The men’s middle distances are also packed with talent, as you would expect for a meeting renowned for its famous Emsley Carr Mile. Olympic 1500m champion Noah Ngeny goes for that coveted trophy, but he’ll have his work cut out against such in-form runners as fellow Kenyans Paul Korir and Cornelius Chirchir, and the Ukrainian Ivan Heshko.
The favourite, however, could be the great new American hope, Alan Webb, who ran the fastest mile of the year, 3:50.85, when he won the Prefontaine Classic in June. European fans will be keen to see how well the much-hailed 21 year-old performs.
The men’s 800m could be even closer as the starting line up includes five of last year’s world championships finallists – Algeria’s world champion Djabir Said-Guerni, Kenyans Joseph Mutua and Justice Koech, and South Africans Hezekiel Sepeng and Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, the 2003 world bronze medallist. Throw into the mix the fifth fastest in the world this year, William Yiampoy, and the seventh fastest, Michael Rotich, both of Kenya, and the event is worthy of the Olympic final itself.
Other highlights of the men’s events include the 400m hurdles, in which world number one this year, James Carter, goes against the British number one Chris Rawlinson; and the triple jump, which pitches the world one and two – USA’s Melvin Lister and Brazil’s Jadel Gregorio – in a head-to-head.
The other men’s field event will be also be followed closely by the London crowd as the home favourite Steve Backley competes in his last ever javelin competition in Britain. Crystal Palace is the venue where he trains, and where, 14 years ago, he set a world record of 90.98m. “It will be sad to think this will be my last time out at Crystal Palace,” said the two-time Olympic silver medallist. “I will be hoping to go out with a bang.”
It will be a bang of some surprising power if he wins the competition though, for it contains the four best throwers in the world this year in Russia’s Alexander Ivanov, America’s Breux Greer and the German pair, Peter Esenwein and Boris Henry. As yet, Backley doesn’t feature in the top 20.
The women’s high jump will see South Africa’s world champion Hestrie Cloete renew her rivalry with Croatia’s Blanka Vlasic and the Ukrainians Inga Babakova and Vita Styopina; while the women’s long jump features world number one Elva Goulbourne of Jamaica against Russia’s Olga Rublyova, USA’s Grace Upshaw and Britain’s Jade Johnson, with British heptathletes Denise Lewis and Kelly Southerton also in the field. As for Ms Jones, she won’t know what she’s missing.
