Tim Montgomery wins 100m in World Record Time (© Getty Images Allsport)
Glasgow, UKIt would be easy to forgive Tim Montgomery if he’s a little distracted on Sunday afternoon (29 June) when he comes to the line for the start of the men’s 100m at the Norwich Union International in Glasgow between Great Britain, USA and Russia.
With his partner, Marion Jones, due to give birth to their first child in three weeks’ time, the American knows he is only a phone call away from a frantic dash back to their home in Raleigh, North Carolina. “I’m going to be on the phone everyday,” he said in London this week. “And if I hear something’s happening, I’ll be back there.”
As if the prospect of imminent fatherhood wasn’t enough to occupy the 28 year-old’s mind, the World record holder also knows that the World championships are only two months away, and he still does not have a full-time coach. Montgomery says he will decide when he returns to the States next week the person who will guide him through Paris this year and on to the Olympic Games in Athens. It’s not a decision he’s taken lightly.
“It’s been a very long and very slow process,” he said, explaining that he hasn’t only had his needs to consider. “When Marion’s training again we will be working together, with the same person. I have to make sure the decision is in her best interests as well as mine. So it has to be someone who knows three events, not just one.”
It’s no surprise, then, that one of the names in the frame is Tom Tellez, former guru to Carl Lewis. Dan Pfaff, once coach to Donovan Bailey, and Darryl Anderson, are thought to be the others under consideration.
Yet, for all his distractions, the Britons European champion Dwain Chambers, and Mark Lewis Francis, who are Montgomery’s main rivals in Scotstoun, should be wary of thinking the American won’t have his mind on the job. Indeed, he’s here, he says, because he’s got a point to prove. “It seems hard for them to look at me and think ‘That guy, there’s the one to beat’. Dwain’s still mentioning Maurice Greene’s name. So I really do owe him – I’m there on Sunday to put Tim Montgomery back on his mind.
“I’ve got my eyes on Mark Lewis Francis as well. Anyone who runs well I’ve got my eyes on. It’s just that they seem to have counted me out. They think I’m in a hole with no coach but I am here to tell everyone I am ready to win.”
He could well have his hands full to do that on Sunday. Chambers appeared to have found some form, at last, with an impressive 10.03 run behind Deji Aliu in Trikala last week. But Lewis Francis, previously Britain’s fastest 100m man this year, with a 10.07 victory over Chambers in Ostrava, will be full of confidence after beating his British rival again in Oslo on Friday night, 10.12 to 10.15.
“Tim raised the bar for the 100 metres in Paris last September,” said Chambers earlier this month. “But he’ll have a tough job to beat me on home soil this year.”
Montgomery’s best for the year stands at 10.04, from Osaka and Mexico in May. Before Mexico, he predicted a sub-9.90 clocking at the high altitude meeting, but he’s been nowhere near that speed so far. Indeed, he only made the US team for Paris after recovering from a stumble at the start of the final in the US championships in Palo Alto last week, eventually finishing second behind Bernard Williams.
According to Montgomery, however, making the team was a major achievement in itself given the turmoil his life’s been through in the last nine months. After breaking the World record at the Grand Prix final in Paris, and lapping up the extra media attention that came with news of his relationship to Jones, the “first couple of sprinting” have indeed hit some turbulent times.
The pair’s much publicised break up with Trevor Graham, followed by a worldwide furore over their connections to the discredited Charlie Francis, left Montgomery feeling as though his world had been “chopped up”.
“Our plans were shaken up by all the commotion that was going on,” he said. “If you have a plan that gets shaken up then all your running is going to be shaken up for a bit. “ Montgomery even admitted that at one stage he thought about abandoning the season until his pregnant partner persuaded him it wasn’t the best idea for them both to be kicking around the home all summer.
“Marion took off her season for me,” says Montgomery. “She told me, ‘I can see you’re going to be all right.’ She is a big inspiration. I always believed in myself, but now I really, really believe in myself.
“I know for a fact that I can be more consistent at 9.8 and can possibly run 9.75, and better than 9.75. When I take everything into consideration I believe I can challenge the World record again this year.”
Glasgow could be Montgomery’s last race before the birth of his child (due on 21 July), and according to his manager Charlie Wells, the triangular meeting was chosen over the more prestigious Bislett Games because it provides a better base to raise the World record holder’s profile in Europe.
Wells, in particular, praised the organisers, Fast Track, and they have certainly attracted an impressive field, for the world’s fastest man will be far from the only star on show. Bernard Williams, the stand up comedian who beat him at the US champs, will compete at 200m, for example, taking on Britain’s fast-improving Christian Malcolm (20.45 at the European Cup behind Olympic champion Kostas Kenteris) and Olympic silver medallist Darren Campbell.
The women’s sprints will give British fans a chance to see Kelli White, the woman who has taken over from Jones as the fastest in the world this year. She will be looking to bounce back from her 100m defeat in Oslo when she races in the 200m, while the 36 year-old double Olympic champion Gail Devers, beaten by White at the US championships, contests the shorter sprint with fellow American Chryste Gaines.
Britain’s world number two Chris Rawlinson (48.45 at the European Cup) will hope to maintain his good form against USA’s Joey Woody and Eric Thomas in the men’s 400m Hurdles, while World indoor champion Dwight Phillips of USA will face British record holder Chris Tomlinson in the men’s Long Jump.
The Russian team will include the women’s World indoor long jump champion, Tatyana Kotova, up against Britain’s Jade Johnson, the woman she beat to the European title last summer. Multi-world record breaker Olga Kuzenkova, who will be a firm favourite in the women’s Hammer, where Commonwealth champion Lorraine Shaw will aim to add to her 16 British records. And another world leading Russian, Marina Kuptsova (2.02m), will be favourite for the women’s High Jump, against British record holder, Susan Jones, and new US champion Amy Acuff, despite her relatively poor 1.92m effort in Oslo.
The Scottish crowd will be keen to see how their former 100m man Ian Mackie is progressing in his new event, the 400m, against such experienced one-lappers as Tyree Washington, Calvin Harrison, Daniel Caines and Iwan Thomas. But they will disappointed that Katherine Merry has withdrawn. The Olympic 400m bronze medallist was due to make her first solo appearance in a British vest for two years, against Scotland’s former high jumper Lee McConnell. Commonwealth 1500m champion Kelly Holmes has also withdrawn, denied her first outing of the summer by a calf strain.
