Posted on: Tuesday, August 14, 2001
Agony and ecstasy spice World track meet
Associated Press
EDMONTON, Alberta — A World Championships without world records or a defining athlete still provided some of the most memorable moments and biggest upsets in track and field history.
Only Marion Jones emerged as a double gold medalist, even though her string of 42 consecutive victories in 100-meter finals since 1997 came to a surprising end.
The top female sprinter for the past four years, Jones appeared to lack the aggressiveness that carried her to five medals at the Sydney Olympics, including golds in the 100 and 200.
She finished .03 seconds behind Ukraine's Zhanna Pintusevich-Block in the 100 where she was two-time defending champion, then won her first 200 title and anchored the U.S. 400-meter relay team to victory.
"I've had the range of emotions," Jones said. "The ups, the downs, the upsets, the satisfaction, the celebration. This is a nice way to wrap up the World Championships — a gold medal and a dominating performance."
Maurice Greene streaked to his third consecutive victory in the 100 in 9.82 seconds, the third-fastest time in history, leading a U.S. sweep of the medals. But he injured his left quadricep while beating Tim Montgomery by .03 seconds and could neither defend his 200 title nor anchor the 400 relay.
"I basically took my body where it wasn't ready to go," Greene said.
Ethiopia's Haile Gebrselassie and Romania's Gabriela Szabo also overextended their bodies.
Gebrselassie, undefeated in 12 straight 10,000-meter races since 1993 and seeking a fifth consecutive world title, finished third. It was his first race since winning the Olympic gold in dramatic fashion last year — one month before he underwent foot surgery.
"The last 100 meters, I don't know what was happening," Gebrselassie said. "I couldn't do anything."
Szabo won the women's 1,500 but finished eighth while bidding for a third consecutive 5,000-meter title.
That defeat was bitter, because her chief rival, Olga Yegorova of Russia, won the race amid chants of "E-P-O, go, go, go."
Yegorova had tested positive for the endurance-enhancing EPO in a urine sample at a meet in Paris last month but was allowed to compete at the championships because no blood sample was taken, as required by IAAF regulations.
Szabo had threatened to boycott the 5,000 if Yegorova competed, but relented and decided to run.
"I knew I could not catch up to the robots," Szabo said afterward.
In the men's pole vault, Australia's Dmitriy Markov won at 19 feet, 10 1/4 inches, then missed three times at joining Ukrainian Sergei Bubka in the 20-foot club. In the women's pole vault, world record-holder Stacy Dragila outdueled Russia's Svetlana Feofanova on fewer misses, with both clearing 15-7. Both then missed at a world-record 15-9 3/4.
The next World Championships will be in Paris in 2003.
