Sparks should fly

Pre-championship ratings often do not have any meaning when it comes to actual competition, especially these days. With the spectre of doping looming larger than ever before, athletics has to prove its credibility all over again. By K. P. Mohan.

Athletics presents the Olympic motto, citius, altius, fortius, in its true sense. It is the showpiece discipline of any Olympic Games and it provides the largest chunk of medals. Beijing will offer 47 gold medals in athletics.

“The Olympic Games in Beijing will not start with the Opening Ceremony on August 8, but rather on August 15, when the first events in athletics begin in the magnificent National Stadium.

“I say this not to be provocative but to underline the unbreakable bond between the Olympic Games and the sport of athletics,” says the President of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), Lamine Diack, in his message in the Olympic special edition of the IAAF Magazine.

The build-up to the Beijing Games has seen two potentially explosive contests in the offing, the men’s 100 metres and the men’s 110-metre hurdles. A double world champion (Tyson Gay) will battle it out with a World record holder (Usain Bolt) and a man who held the world record till May 31 (Asafa Powell) in the 100 metres.

The biggest Chinese hero, as Beijing prepares to showcase what should turn out to be a most memorable Olympics, Liu Xiang (110m hurdler), world and Olympic champion, will cross swords with the latest sensation and world record holder, Dayron Robles of Cuba. Sparks should fly.

With three straight victories in the Grand Prix circuit, including a 9.82 in Monaco, Powell has regained some lost ground since he lost to Bolt at home. Gay, in the meantime, has rested to nurse his injury.

Liu Xiang also has stayed away from action much of summer, competing in just three major competitions, winning two and being disqualified in the third, while Robles has won eight of the nine competitions he figured in till July 22.

The two key showdowns and the one between Jeremy Wariner and LaShawn Merritt in the 400 metres, apart, there should be plenty to look forward to, as always, in an Olympic athletics programme.

As had been the pattern, American athletes should figure prominently in most of the events. The US won 25 athletics medals in Athens, eight of them gold. At the Osaka World Championships, the Americans took an incredible 14 gold medals in a collection of 26 medals.

Fifteen Olympic medallists and 31 World Championships medal-winners are part of the 126-strong US athletics squad in the Beijing Olympics.

Double gold medallist at the Osaka Worlds, Bernard Lagat, formerly of Kenya and now donning the US vest, should be the man to beat in the 1500 metres, but he could have serious challenge from Kenenisa Bekele in the 5000 metres, if the latter competes in the event, and Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya. Lagat had won the silver in the 1500 metres behind Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco in Athens, while representing Kenya.

Bekele’s undoubted prowess at 10,000 metres needs no emphasis here, but the interesting news is Haile Gebrselassie would be back on track.

Gebrselassie, nursing an injury, made the Ethiopian team and chose the 10,000 metres where he won back-to-back Olympic titles in Atlanta and Sydney. He was only fifth last time when Bekele posted an Olympic record of 27:05.10.

Since the Athens defeat, Gebrselassie has shifted his focus to marathon, but decided against competing in the gruelling event in Beijing considering the weather conditions and the high pollution levels expected. Bekele has not lost to the great man in the 10,000 in three meetings.

These world-renowned champions apart, there are emerging stars on the athletics scene, perhaps none more talented and exciting than Abubaker Kaki Khamis. Coming from the strife-torn Sudan, the 19-year-old is already a senior World indoor champion, a World junior champion and a bronze medallist (1500m) at the 2005 World Youth championships.

Khamis also happens to be the world junior record holder in the 800 metres, at 1:42.69, the time he clocked while winning the Bislett Games in Oslo this June. That is the world-leading time this season and with that he is 13th on the all-time list.

The 800, as it has been the past few seasons, will remain an open contest with anyone among the top six having a chance to win. If Khamis does win it would be a great triumph of human spirit amidst extreme adversity.

On the women’s side, the Americans look set to dominate the sprints again. The Athens shock of Belarus’s Yulia Nesterenko winning the 100 is unlikely to repeat, though the Belarussian, now better known as Nestsiarenka, is back in form this season, winning the European Cup in 11.17 seconds.

American newcomer Muna Lee, Torri Edwards and Lauryn Williams, silver medallist last time, will be the women to watch in the short dash, especially since world champion Veronica Campbell-Brown failed to make the Jamaican team in the 100, though she would be defending the title in the 200 metres. Jamaicans Kerron Stewart and Sherone Simpson looked strong in Monaco and can pose a danger to the Americans.

Sanya Richards in the 400 metres looks odds-on-favourite while two Kenyans, Pamela Jelimo, 18, and world champion Janeth Jepkosgei, 24, should battle it out for the 800, now that Russian Yelena Soboloeva is under provisional suspension following a doping offence. Moroccan Hasna Benhassi, second in Athens, could challenge the Kenyans.

Soboleva’s team-mate Tatyana Tomashova has also been provisionally suspended after an IAAF investigation into possible substitution of urine samples by seven Russian athletes. With the two Russians likely to sit out, world champion Maryam Yusuf Jamal (Bahrain) who showed her current form with a 3:59.99 victory in the Paris Golden League, should be the odds-on-favourite.

Distance events, as usual, will be dominated by the Ethiopians and the Kenyans, with the odd Chinese capable of pulling off a surprise. World champions Meseret Defar (5000m) and Tirunesh Dibaba (10,000m) look poised to strike. Dibaba, coming back from injuries and illness, is aiming for a double. She holds the world record (awaiting ratification) in the 5000 at 14:11.15, clocked at Oslo in June.

Blanca Vlasic of Croatia in high jump and the splendid Russian Yelena Isinbayeva in pole vault — she could be stretched a little by Jenn Stuczynski of the US — should be the front-runners in their events. Isinbayeva had two world records this season, the last one, 5.04, coming in Monaco on July 29.

Long jump looks a toss-up, with Brazilian Maurren Higa Maggi, who is back from a doping suspension, Portuguese Naide Gomes and American Britney Reese looking good in the run-up. The Russians have been subdued this season. Lyudmila Kolachnova, who had a seven-metre jump this season, did not make her team, leaving veterans Tatyana Lebedeva and Tatyana Kotova to keep up the familiar battle. Gomes hit the top mark of 7.12 at the Monaco GP.

Pre-championship ratings often do not have any meaning when it comes to actual competition, especially these days. With the spectre of doping looming larger than ever before, athletics has to prove its credibility all over again.

“A lot of athletes are feeling it right now,” Asafa Powell said in London recently about dope cheats depriving ‘clean’ athletes of their medals. “After five or ten years they now realise the four guys who were in front of them were on drugs. So they get the medal, but it’s too late, it’s not the same. They have been robbed of the glory and maybe a very big shoe contract.”