The majority of track and field aficionados expected Felix Sanchez to win the Olympic 400m Hurdles final. And who could have blamed them.
After all the 27-year-old representative of the Dominican Republic won the last two editions of the IAAF World Championships, the IAAF Golden League Jackpot in 2002, the inaugural IAAF World Athletics Final in 2003 and has topped the IAAF World Event Rankings for an incredible 158 weeks.
Since losing at the Zagreb meeting on 2 July 2001, and before setting in the blocks, Sanchez had amassed an unbelievable 42 consecutive wins including his first round heat and semi-final on Monday and Tuesday here in Athens.
But then one thinks that it’s a hurdle race and anything can happen before the finish line. One think of what happened to Perdita Felicien and Allen Johnson, them too World reigning champions and leaders in their respective IAAF Event Ranking.
Thankfully for Sanchez there wasn’t going to be any incident tonight and the best man in the field won the Olympic title, although it took the Pan-American champion a lot of efforts to do so.
It was obvious that Sanchez was under pressure to take the title he has been running after since the Sydney Olympic Games four years ago. Tension was in the air and in the blocks the athletes weren’t set properly, Naman Keita of France even had to readjust his blocks when the first command was given.
"You would think that with 42 wins behind you things would get easier butthat was no easy feat. The pressure was huge. I felt very emotional the hours before the race and then entering in the stadium. I knew it was going to be all or nothing. The one thing I knew is that I didn't want to feel like I did in Sydney."
Back up and then back in the blocks, Sanchez was still feeling the pressure. There was a false start which was attributed to the pair of Sanchez and US champion James Carter, the man who coming into the Olympic Games had said the race would be his to lose.
And according to his game plan, the 26-year-old American in lane 4 rocketed out of the blocks and cleared the first hurdle ahead of Sanchez who was running in lane 6. Sanchez wasn’t going to let Carter have it that easy and the two were level at the second hurdle. But then it was Carter attacking again and for the next two hurdles the American was ahead even though only just slightly.
150 metres to the line, four hurdles away from the title and Sanchez made his move, one which would prove decisive. Although Sanchez and Carter came into the home stretch and cleared the ninth hurdle virtually simultaneously one could tell that the American would not have the energy to chase Sanchez to the tape.
And indeed while Sanchez was now sprinting to the finish which he reached in his season’s best time of 47.63, Carter was left without gas and couldn’t but watch while Jamaica’s Danny McFarlane took silver in 48.11 and Naman Keita of France who had been trailing back in seventh coming into the final straight took bronze in 48.26.
The 400m Hurdles final here in Athens will remain in the history of the sport as the last one in which Sanchez wore his “Sydney 2000” flashing wristband.
“I switched it on before the race,” said Sanchez. “But you guys are never going to see that wristband ever again.”
Silver medalist McFarlane also earned his place in history as the first man to make the final in the 400m at the Sydney Olympics and then return and win a medal in the 400m Hurdles four years on.
It was a much sadder story for Carter who after his disappointing fourth place in Sydney has to be content with yet again another fourth place here in Athens.
Keita also succeeded in what his former training partner and European record holder Stéphane Diagana had never accomplished: that of winning an Olympic medal.
LA
