Warming to the task ahead

The pursuit of gold medals begins next week - for now the best athletes in the world are flat out chasing their own shadows.

Around the tracks of Australia, world recordholders, medal hopefuls and Olympic dreamers come together each day for what a first-time observer might think is badly choreographed folk dancing.

Bounding beneath the blazing Sydney sun, they go through weird warmup routines and twist their bodies in preparation for training performances that would leave couch potatoes in need of cardiac care.

Hurdlers, sprinters and jumpers yesterday hopped, jumped, dashed and stretched at the Sydney International Athletic Centre, the Olympic Park warmup venue.

Here a Caribbean triple-jumper bounces up and down the track time and time again building strength for the Games competition he has spent months dreaming of; there an Eastern European athlete contorts his body to make his muscles supple enough to perform the superhuman task he will ask of them soon.

And in the midst of them all, oblivious to everything, an African distance runner circles the track at a steady pace, relaxed arms dangling at his side, head steady as a rock.

These are the routines they have repeated hour after hour, day after day for four years in pursuit of a chance at Olympic glory.

Usually, training takes place in lonely stadiums. Now these athletes are surrounded by the finest on the planet - all hoping this will be the greatest time of their lives.