GANNETT NEWS SERVICE MULTIMEDIA                                                                    Olympics home | E-mail feedback

August 19, 2004 4:18 pm

U.S. sprinters hope to join select company

By ELLIOTT DENMAN

Gannett News Service

ATHENS, Greece - If all goes well, Raleigh, N.C.-based Justin Gatlin and Shawn Crawford can bring home three Olympic sprint medals, a feat just three American runners have achieved in the last 50 years.

Carl Lewis did it in 1984, and you have to go back to Bobby Morrow and Thane Baker in 1956 to find the last time it was done before that.

Gatlin and Crawford, along with teammate Maurice Greene, the former world record-holder and defending Olympic champion, will open their Olympic bids in the first round and quarter-finals of the 100 meters on Saturday.

The semifinals and finals are Sunday.

Then it's on to the 200, where Greene bows out and Baltimore's Bernard Williams steps in for Team USA. The competition includes two races on Tuesday, semifinals on Wednesday and finals on Thursday.

At that point, American team coach George Williams will pick his 4x100-meter relay team personnel based on performances in the first two races and the physical condition of his top men.

``I'm definitely up for it,'' said Gatlin from the American training camp on Crete Thursday night.

``Crete's been cool, but now I want to get started. I'm ready to run.''

The pre-Olympic training camp on Crete - just a short shuttle flight to Athens - has helped bring America's sprint team to the Games in prime shape.

``The men's 100-meter crew is very well intact,'' Williams said at a Thursday press conference.

``Shawn Crawford, in practice, he's covering 40 meters like it's 20 meters. Justin (Gatlin) is working on his start.

``Maurice Greene is definitely getting fit and getting in shape, trying to hold that last 20 meters where he's been losing it.

``So the men's sprint group is in good shape.''

The 100 is always one of the Olympic's glamour events, and all three U.S. sprinters have golden potential. Williams declined to pick a favorite.

Crawford owns the fastest 100-meter time in the world this year, a 9.88 in Eugene, Ore., in June.

At last month's Olympic Trials in Sacramento, Greene (9.91), Gatlin (9.92) and Crawford (9.93) were within a whisker of one another.

There was just a little more daylight between the top two in the Trials 200 - Crawford (19.99) and Gatlin (20.01) - as Williams (20.30) nosed out Darvis Patton (20.32) for third.

Leading 100-meter candidates from other nations include Asafa Powell of Jamaica, Aziz Zakari of Ghana, Francis Obikwelu of Portugal, Uchenna Emedolu of Nigeria and Kim Collins of St. Kitts, the surprise winner of the 2003 world title in Paris.

``Just being an Olympian, it's a tremendous honor,'' said Gatlin, a graduate of Woodham High School in Florida who won six NCAA sprint gold medals for the University of Tennessee.

Crawford, a two-time NCAA champion and 2000 graduate of Clemson, is an ex-star at North Carolina's Indian Lakes High School.

He often calls himself ``Cheetah Man'' and gained special kind of recognition when he raced a zebra and a giraffe on the Fox TV program ``Man vs. Beast.''

Now, he's got his chance to run to glory on a far bigger stage.

ADVERTISEMENT