Tim Montgomery wins 100m in World Record Time (© Getty Images Allsport)
After a $400,000 pay day in Paris at last weekend’s IAAF Grand Prix Final, Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones, the fastest couple in sport have moved their camp to Madrid for the 9th IAAF World Cup in Athletics, which takes place this Friday and Saturday.
A year ago in Oslo when Tim Montgomery ran 9.84, then equalling the second fastest 100m time ever run, he had to borrow Marion Jones’ sprinting spikes because his luggage had been lost in transit. Then last weekend, feeling a little sluggish before the start of the Grand Prix Final and having seen Marion run 10.88 to win her race, Tim selected her starting blocks and 9.78 seconds later he had grabbed the World Record from Maurice Greene.
So are Tim and Marion, officially the world’s fastest couple now athletics’ answer to football’s “Posh n’ Becks”? (David Beckham and Victoria “Posh Spice” for non UK residents …)
The answer is a categorical no! While the celebrity relationship of the two American sprinters is surely set to grab headlines, nobody claims that Mrs. Beckham has ever exhibited any sporting prowess.
So Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones can lay claim to the title of the world’s leading sporting couple. It’s a show which now moves from the leafy suburbs of Paris’ Stade Charlety to the Madrid’s La Comunidad Stadium for the 9th IAAF World Cup in Athletics, 20-21 September 2002.
Both the Men’s and Women’s 100m races take place on Friday, and on arriving yesterday in Madrid, Montgomery was pleased to confirm that he felt “very good after breaking the record,” that that he had heard that the Madrid track was “very quick, and I am sure going to test it out.”
It will be no cakewalk either as Montgomery faces Britain’s European champion Dwain Chambers who equalled the European record of 9.87, when finishing second in the American’s World record wake in Paris.
Jones who will double at 100m and 200m in Madrid has perhaps the easier race, as Zhanna Pintusevich-Block, the 100m World Champion, will not be running. In the shorter sprint her main opposition will come from Jamaica’s Tayna Lawrence, Susanthika Jayasinghe of Sri Lanka and Spain’s Glory Alozie, while over 200m, European champion Muriel Hurtis and Jayasinghe will offer the stiffest challenge.
