Simply the best

By PETER JESSUP

Of the 10,000 athletes competing in Sydney, some 10 per cent will be back for the next Olympics in Athens. This alone will be a big achievement, but it hardly matches the amazing record of an elite group of competitors who are notching up their fourth and, in some cases, fifth Olympics in a row.

To remain at the top of the sporting world for two decades is almost unthinkable.

Leader of the pack at Sydney is British rower Steve Redgrave, gunning for a fifth gold medal, at his fifth Games.

Redgrave signalled something of the effort required to attain the Olympic heights with his quip after winning his fourth gold in Atlanta. "If anyone sees me getting into a boat again they have my permission to shoot me."

He then had a change of heart and decided on one more Olympics. His wife, Great Britain team doctor Ann Redgrave, would probably not shoot him if he refused to stop after the Sydney Games,"but she'd probably leave me."

Redgrave, aged 38, is the only British athlete to carry the Union Jack at two Olympics. That honour was bestowed after he won gold with the coxed four at Los Angeles as an 18 year old, who came into the team as a late replacement. There was gold in the coxless pairs and bronze in the coxed pairs at Seoul, gold in the coxless pair at Barcelona. He and current fours partner Matt Pinsent, then 19, won gold in the coxless pair at Atlanta.

Redgrave's life has revolved around rowing since he left school at 16 to follow his obvious talent. Taught to scull at school at Marlow, he was competing in world junior championships by 1979.

With two golds behind him after Seoul, he tried out for the bobsleigh team for the Winter Olympics and only just missed selection.

He went back on the river, found a new partner in Pinsent, and has not looked back. The Oarsome Foursome, including Tim Foster and James Cracknell, have been together two years and are one of four teams favoured for the gold, the others being Australia, Italy and the Kiwis, who proved their class at Lucerne last month.

Redgrave's achievements are even more noteworthy when you consider that he is constantly on medication to ward off colitis, and requires daily shots of insulin for late-developing diabetes. He has had to inject himself in front of the Australian boat crew before racing, when they shared a shed, but does not feel any vulnerability as a result. "It doesn't worry me at all. In some respects it's saying 'Look what I have to do and I'm going out to race you lot'."

His four golds are in a museum at Henley, where he is regarded as a legend, having secured 19 titles at that national regatta.

But fame has been fleeting. When Redgrave arrived back from Atlanta, there to meet him were his wife and then two daughters - the couple now have a third - and a reporter and photographer from the Mirror newspaper with a congratulatory cake.

Going for his fourth consecutive gold is 33 year old Turkish weightlifter Naim Suleymanoglu, the "Pocket Hercules." If Redgrave's welcome home after Atlanta was at one extreme, the 150cm lifter's was at the other. More than a million peopleturned out at Ankara to show their appreciation.

Suleymanoglu is Bulgarian by birth and was a teen competitor when Bulgaria moved against ethnic Turks, closing mosques and forcing Muslims to change their names. He was in Melbourne, eating at a restaurant, when he decided not to go home. The private jet of the Turkish Prime Minister was sent to fetch him and when he reached Ankara he stepped onto the tarmac and kissed it Pope-style, a picture that glows in Turkish folklore.

When he went to Seoul the Bulgarians required a $US1 million ($2.34 million) transfer fee to complete documentation to allow him to compete. The Government paid and he repaid with his first gold. After a repeat at Barcelona there was the incredible showdown with Greek Valerios Leonidis at Atlanta, where the world record swapped hands three times before Suleymanoglu went further than Leonidis could.

Then he hit the nightclubs and the headlines with late night arguments over women, keeping his face in the public eye. "I am a young man, we are all young once," is how he explained that.

Last year, he went back to the old aircraft hanger that is the Turkish weightlifting headquarters and, after three years idle, started training again. He finished third at the European championships in Sofia but scotched talk that he was past it. "I knew I couldn't do it there but it was important for me to compete once before the Olympics. I believe I can win easier in Sydney than I did in Atlanta.

"Silver or bronze is nothing for me. I am only satisfied with gold."

Also likely to win gold again is Cuban heavyweight boxer Felix Savon, the best fighter never to go professional.

He was apparently offered $US10 million by promoter Don King for a world title fight against Mike Tyson. That, like all other offers, was refused by the double gold medallist, whose Olympic career has been interrupted by boycotts. Savon was amateur world champion from 1986 up to last year, when he would have won but refused to fight the last bout in yet another political protest at the way Cuba was treated at the championships, held in Texas.

"I do not like professional boxing," Savon said. "In the professional ranks the athlete is not protected at all. They don't take care of him at all and of course the main interest is in earning money. It's a very dirty sport. Olympic boxing, amateur sport, is very clean and it's truly something that is good for the athlete."

Savon will turn 33 at the Games. He has beaten all the boxers he will meet in Sydney and is regarded as a cert in his homeland.

Savon says money would not make him happier. "Money is not everything. He who abandons his fatherland has no love for anything in life. There is no more beautiful family than the country where you are born and that's why I will never stop loving my flag."

Two athletes from Down Under line up for their fifth Olympics.

Kiwi equestrian Mark Todd had golds in the three-day event at Los Angeles and Seoul and a bronze in the teams event at Seoul. He missed out in Barcelona and again in Atlanta, with horse trouble at the latter.

Australian basketballer Andrew Gaze, 35, leads the national side in his fifth Olympics.

Gaze, now with the Melbourne Tigers after a stint with the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA, knows that a gold is unlikely with the US Dream Team in action.

But a silver or a bronze would be fitting reward for the dedication and effort that has been required by Gaze to make it to five Olympic Games.