Athletics: Golden girl of Games a winner even in defeat

LONDON - Flawed technique and circumstances beyond her control denied Marion Jones sporting immortality at the Sydney Olympics.

Three gold medals still made Jones the most successful track and field athlete of the Games, but she fell short of the five titles she had planned.

After commanding performances to win the 100m and 200m double, Jones lost to a superior technician in Heike Drechsler in the long jump.

And two indifferent changes left her with too much to do in the final leg of the 4x100m.

The 24-year-old American also had to contend with relentless media attention after the revelation that her husband, C. J. Hunter, had tested positive for huge amounts of the steroid nandrolone.

With two gold and two bronze medals, Jones redeemed her Games on the final night with a startling third leg in the winning 4x400m relay team.

She also won new admirers with her grace after losing to Drechsler in the long jump final.

"I can tell my grandchildren I competed against one of the greatest long jumpers of all time," she said. "Heike Drechsler deserved to win."

Drechsler, at 35, became the first woman to win the Olympic long jump title twice.

Her victory crowns a career which began with a gold medal at the first world championships in 1983 and includes three world long jump records and two in the 200m sprint.

Sydney in September was not the ideal environment for a big athletics meeting, with gusting winds and occasionally frigid temperatures.

But the magnificent Olympic stadium still staged two of the great races of all time.

Haile Gebrselassie, his trademark smile replaced by an agonised grimace, held off Paul Tergat by nine-hundredths of a second to retain the 10,000m title.

Hicham El Guerrouj, the world champion and record holder, collapsed in tears after his dream of the Olympic 1500m title vanished for the second time when he was outsprinted by Kenyan Noah Ngeny.

The biggest cheers were for Cathy Freeman - under overwhelming pressure after lighting the Olympic flame - who won the women's 400m for Australia and her native Aboriginal race.

Sydney was the final Games for Michael Johnson, who won the men's 400m, then anchored the 4x400m relay team to victory.

Johnson has won nothing but gold in five Olympic and nine world finals, although the great imponderable remains the dream race that never happened.

Last year fellow-American Maurice Greene won the world 200m title in Johnson's absence and the pair, who make no secret of their mutual dislike, were scheduled to clash at the US trials in July.

Neither finished the final after pulling up lame, denying Johnson a chance to defend the Olympic title and Greene the opportunity of a 100m-200m double.

Another athlete unlikely to be seen again on an Olympic stage is Jan Zelezny, who won his third consecutive javelin title at the age of 34.

Zelezny's supple, slingshot action has propelled the javelin to five world records, but has also left the Czech with recurring back and elbow injuries.

Two women's events, the hammer and the pole vault, made their debut in Sydney.

The hammer began farcically when officials marched world champion Mihaela Melinte away from the circle before the qualifying, after telling her she had tested positive for nandrolone.

It ended with a gold medal to 17-year-old Pole Kamila Skolimowska.

Californian Stacy Dragila added the Olympic pole vault gold medal to her first women's indoor and outdoor world titles.

Earlier in the year, Dragila extended the world record to 4.63m and Trine Hattestad threw the redesigned women's javelin a record 69.48m before an ecstatic home crowd in Oslo.

Hattestad won the Olympic title at her fifth Games and, all ambitions satisfied, announced her retirement.

Impoverished Ethiopia enjoyed a triumphant year.

Derartu Tulu outsprinted compatriot Gete Wami in the women's world cross-country long-course race, then repeated her 1992 victory in the Olympic 10,000m final.

Kutre Duleche won the women's short-course cross-country race, Gebrselassie retained the 10,000m title, Millon Wolde won the 5000m and Gezahgne Abera completed the year with victory in the men's marathon.

- REUTERS

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