April 7: Texas Relays Action

Maurice Greene got his outdoor season off to a fast start Saturday, anchoring the HSI team's winning invitational 400-meter relay team in the Texas Relays.

Greene and Jon Drummond, Bernard Williams and Curtis Johnson finished in 37.88 seconds, the fastest time in the world this year and 0.48 seconds off the world mark of 37.40 set by the U.S. Olympic team in 1992.

"I predicted 37.5 but I was clowning around at the end of the race. But it was a good showing," said Greene, who teamed with Drummond and Williams on the U.S. Olympic gold-medal team in Sydney. Greene, who skipped the World Indoor Championships in Portugal last month, has made the Texas Relays a regular stop. He shocked the crowd in 1995 when as a relatively unknown 20-year-old, he won the 100 with a wind-aided 9.88 seconds, upsetting Carl Lewis.

"It's a great meet," said the 26-year-old Greene. "This meet has always been good to me."

Now the 100 world record holder (9.79 seconds) and Olympic gold medalist says he wants to lower his mark this year. His often-stated goal is 9.76 seconds. "My coach says I can run 9.6, so we'll see what happens," Greene said.

"I think I'm on the pace to break the record, so that's what I'm focusing on. My training has been going great ... I'm expecting great things out of myself," he said.

HSI was well ahead by the time Greene took the baton and he coasted to the finish line, putting his hands up and smiling to the crowd.

"I don't come out and run as a practice meet," Greene said. "The fans don't pay to see you practice, they come to see you put on a show and that's what I come out here to do."

The Austin All-Stars team of Daymon Carroll, Glenroy Gilbert, Takahashi Ashimara and Bruny Surin finished second in 38.91.

Drummond, who at 32 says he considered retiring this year after the Olympics, said the HSI team can break the world record this year.

"We know within our group, we possess the talent to break the world record and basically we're challenging that this year," Drummond said.

Greene demonstrated his conditioning with a strong anchor leg in the invitational 800 relay. Although HSI's time of 1:20.44 seconds finished second to team Octigan's 1:20.42, Greene nearly made up 12 meters on Rohsaan Griffin in the final stretch to make it close. Octigan's Shawn Crawford, Obadele Thompson and Milton Campbell provided Griffin the lead that he nearly lost.

"I have held Maurice Greene off before," Griffin said. "As long as we had the lead, I knew we were fine."

In other events Saturday, Texas Christian won the university 400 relay for the third consecutive year, circling the track in 38.94. Anchor Kim Collins said the Horned Frogs wanted to race Greene and HSI, but TCU didn't run in the invitational event.

"The media wouldn't want to say that TCU is better than America's best," said Collins, who hails from St. Kitts in the Caribbean.

"Tell'em to come on," Greene said. "We take on all comers. We're just out here having fun. I think TCU could give us a good race."

Collins partly backed up his bravado by winning the men's invitational 100 with a wind-aided 9.99 seconds. The tailwind registered 2.1 meters per second. Greene didn't run. Collins' time was the fastest in the world this year under any conditions. Collins was chosen the meet's outstanding male athlete for second consecutive year and TCU was chosen the outstanding team.

"It was a great race. I felt ready," Collins said. "As a team, I think we performed really well here. Everybody's going to be really watching out for us."

The "Austin All-Stars" include Jamaica's Donovan Powell, Canada's Glenroy Gilbert and Bruny Surin and Japan's 100 record holder, Nobuharu Asahara. Also continuing to work out in Austin is Donovan Bailey, but Pfaff is uncertain if the former 100 world-record holder and 1996 Olympic gold medalist will compete.

The college events also are loaded. The university 400-meter relay could be special. Texas Christian's Flying Frogs, led by Olympians Kim Collins and Lindel Frater, lead the nation with a clocking of 38.77 seconds, amazingly fast for this point in the young outdoor season. But LSU isn't far behind at 39.69.

The Longhorn men are longshots to win their third Relays crown in the 400 relay since 1959 -- their last came in 1990. But their time of 39.80 at the Tellez meet offers hope that they might break the school mark of 39.09 this season, especially since probable anchor Nathanal Esprit is back after being sidelined since the Big 12 Conference indoor championships with a sprained left ankle.

But Thornton, who coached TCU to five NCAA 400 relay titles in 14 years before coming to Texas in 1996, believes the Longhorns would sell themselves short by being complacent with merely breaking the 39.09 mark.

"I really believe we can run in the 38s," Thornton said. "When I look at the (TCU) teams I had, this group, if they're healthy and believe in themselves, is capable to my 1995 team that won the NCAAs in 38.56. And anytime you can start to run 38.50s, you're in the hunt."

Once Esprit returns to anchor, which could be this weekend, Texas is solid at three of the four relay spots, with Amar Johnson leading off and Lawrence Armstrong on the second leg. The third leg is up for grabs, but there are no shortage of candidates with Chris Clay, Jermaine Cooper, David Aaron and Michael Franklin, a transfer from Texas Tech.

"My freshman year, I said we were up and coming and here to make history," said Esprit, a junior. "But things have not yet fallen in place like I believe they will. For us, history is still in the making."

This might be the perfect weekend for it, because history has a way of happening at the Texas Relays.

by Jim Ferstle - Tuesday, March 13, 2001

3/13/01---Bruny Surin of Canada has twice won the world indoor sprint title at 60 meters and is the 1999 world outdoor 100-meter silver medallist. For much of his career, Surin has been in the shadows of compatriot Donovan Bailey, the 1996 Olympic gold medallist and former world-record holder, and of U.S. sprinter Maurice Greene, current Olympic champion and world-record holder. Surin's thrilling duel with Greene was one of the highlights of the 1999 World Championships in Seville and branded Surin as Greene's toughest rival for Sydney. An injury kept Surin from challenging Greene in Australia, however, and now his sights are set on Greene at this year's World Championships in Edmonton.

Runner's World Daily: What happened last year in Sydney?

Bruny Surin: That was a very tough time for me, especially since my training was going so well. I still don't know how and why I got injured. One of the problems I have is that one leg, my right, is shorter than the other. I went to a clinic to get the exact difference measured and I had a small lift made for my right heel. Three weeks ago, just by chance, my doctor asked to see my lift. It appeared to be too high. I had too much correction in my right leg, so my left leg compensated. That is the only thing they've found. The only reason I can think of for what happened.

RWD: How have you coped?

BS: I'm 100 percent now. But when you come back from something like that, you always wonder whether or not it's going to happen again, especially when you don't know what caused it. You are afraid to push too hard for fear of getting hurt again. I was in that phase for about three weeks. But my doctors and my physiotherapist said I was okay, that everything was fine, so I went full speed in practice and everything has been fine.

RWD: When are you going to start competing?

BS: My target was the Texas Relays in April, but it looks like I may decide to stay in Miami, to start competing there. My goal is to start competing in Europe at the end of May. The Canadian Championships are in June, then the Francophone Games, and, of course, the World Championships in Edmonton.

RWD: How do you view the competition, Maurice Greene, Jon Drummond, and the other sprinters?

BS: My big competition is Maurice. Of course, there are going to be others coming up, emerging, as well as the ones who are already there, such as Ato Boldon and Obe Thompson. But Maurice is the big challenge for me. Last year was supposed to be my year. It didn't work out that way, so the challenge is still there, and the motivation is still there.

RWD: Tell us about the 100 meters in Seville.

BS: It was a very weird race, technically between Maurice and myself. At the beginning Maurice was ahead of me. I passed him, and then he passed me. That's not supposed to happen. Most people thought I was ahead for most of the race, but it didn't happen that way. I watched the tapes, got the split times. He had a better start. Then between 10 and 20 meters, he stumbled. That was his mistake. My mistake was running too fast when I passed him. I stood my body up and at about 70-80 meters my body position was too far back, and it slowed me down and he passed me. He made a mistake. I made a mistake. In 2001, it's going to be the guy who makes the least mistakes who wins. I don't intend on making a mistake.

RWD: In recent years there has been lots of talk about world records and fast times. Do times motivate you?

BS: As soon as I did the 9.84, I was happy. A couple of days after I said, "Okay, the party's over. I want to go faster." Earlier that year I had run a really fast 20-meter segment in practice. My coach said it was the fastest he'd ever seen, that extrapolating from the segment time, I was capable of running 9.76. If I hadn't made that mistake in Seville, I would have run 9.76. That makes me motivated. But times depend on so many factors being right, the track, the wind. I could compare it to Bob Beamon's long jump. That was the perfect jump on the perfect day. You're never going to see something like that again. There has never been that kind of a day yet in sprinting. I still keep waiting. That's another one of the things that keeps me motivated. That perfect day. The perfect performance. We haven't seen one yet.

March 30: Crawford defeats Boldon in Engen Race

At the Alabama Relays, James Shelton of Ole Miss took the 100 metres in 10.37 (wind: 1.0). Marlon Barnaby of McKendree was second in 10.46, followed by MSU's Pierre Browne who ran 10.47. Davian Clarke (unattached) claimed the 200 metres in 20.89 seconds of work (wind: 0.1).

At Arizona State's Baldy Castillo relays, Tennesse's Leonard Scott rebounded from a dissapointing NCAA Indoors to run the NCAA leading time for 2001, winning the 100 metres in 10.13 seconds (0.1) ahead of Arizona State's Marcus Brunson who is also in form in 10.21 seconds. Terence Newman of Kansas State was third, in 10.22.

Staying in Arizona, at the Jim Click Wildcat Shootout in Tuscon, Chris Chandler of Nebraska won both the 100 and 200 metre sprints, in 10.33 (-0.4) and 20.83 (0.0) respectively.

Australian 100m record holder Matt Shirvington proved he was a big time performer shrugging off ankle soreness tonight to win the 100 metres at the Telstra Australian Track & Field Championships at Brisbane's ANZ Stadium.

Shirvington took advantage of the perfect sprinting conditions on the new track to clock a fast 10.19 seconds and win his fourth consecutive national 100m title. Fast-finishing Patrick Johnson was second in 10.26 seconds just holding out Paul Di Bella (10.27 seconds). It was Shirvington's first victory in four attempts over Johnson this season.

The three sprinters also clocked fast times in their semi-finals with Johnson (10.25s) and Di Bella (10.26s) in heat one and Shirvington (10.26s) in heat two.

Lack of competition fitness saw little-know Morne Nagel (South Africa), upstage Olympic silver medallist Ato Boldon (Trinidad and Tobago) in the 100 metres at the Engen series meeting in Pretoria last night.

Slow in accelerating out of the blocks, Boldon struggled to cover lost ground in the early stages of the race. In the last 30 metres of the race, he seemed to have resigned to his fate and fell back to finish fourth in 10.30 seconds.

Nagel won the race on a career best of 10.15. Kevin Braunskill (USA) was runner up in 10.25, while his compatriot Kenny Brokenburr was third in 10.26.

In his heat, Boldon clocked 10.29 and was placed second to Braunskill who was timed 10.25. Boldon spoke frankly about his experience.

"I run much better in the heats than in the finals. This is not what l expected. In fact, I had requested for there to be heats so that I can warm up well, because these are my first competitions of the years. It did work for me today," said Boldon.

"The altitude affected me in the sense that l warmed up too hard for the finals. I have competed at altitude. You know we sprinters have got to have short memories. I will get over this tonight and by next week in Stellenbosch it will be a new situation. We will be almost at sea level and l will move like a rocket," said the Olympic silver medallist.

World indoor 200 metres bronze medallist, Dutchman Patrick van Balkom (20.36) had wore a broad smile after winning the 200 metres in 20.36 seconds. "Firstly, I have equalled my national record. However, more important tonight is that l have taken revenge against Shawn Crawford who took the gold medal at the World Indoor Championships in Lisbon," said a delighted Van Balkom.

MSU's Pierre Browne kicked off his 2001 outdoor season on saturday, winning the 100m and 200m at a SEC Quad Meet at Mississippi State University. The 2000 Canadian 200m champion took the 100m in 10.25 (wind: 1.2), well ahead of the rest of the field. Browne returned and won the 200m, the only man under 21 seconds in 20.88 (wind: 0.4). Rico Tilley of South Alabama placed second in both events.

Browne was not the only NCAA sprinter lighting it up Saturday, Washington's Ja'Warren Hooker also kicked off his 2001 season, winning the 100 and 200 at a Pac-10 quad meet in Berkeley, CA. Hooker, a senior, was timed in 10.33 and 20.57.

At the 2001 Cal Poly Invitational, Kaaron Conwright also completed a 100/200 double, in 10.34w and 20.83w.

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