Freeman
welcomes Perec comeback
Mike Hurst for the
IAAF
18 December
2001 – Sydney, Australia - Cathy Freeman
yesterday welcomed news that her
enigmatic French rival, Marie Jose Perec,
is back training presumably with an eye
toward the 2003 world championships in
Paris.
“I’m excited. I’m happy for her. And I wish her all the very best,” Freeman said at her home in Melbourne.
Since Perec fled Sydney 48hrs before the heats of last year’s Olympic 400m, she has remained reclusive.
Her own website has not been updated since October 20 last year, nor has she been in contact since February with the French athletics federation, her main sponsor (Reebok), manager (Annick Averinos) or coach (Wolfgang Meier) - now all in the category of “former”associates.
However Perec has been found training daily behind locked doors at a sports college in Pointe-a-Pitre, the capital of the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe where she was born 33 years ago.
“For the moment, she is just looking for some calm to train,” Lucien Rechal, one of a litany of Perec’s former coaches, told French sports daily L’Equipe.
But the new Olympic 400m champion said it was premature to speculate about where, or when, they might race now that both are on the comeback track.
“Oh look, we can only just wait and see like we all have in the past with Perec. Just wait and see,” Freeman said yesterday.
“I’m looking forward to racing her if she gets back. There’s no question.”
Asked whether she planned to compete in Lausanne or Nice, where Perec ran her only races last year, Freeman explained: “I haven’t sat down and talked with (Melbourne track agent) Maurie Plant yet.
“A lot will depend on how my progress is going here in Australia and I haven’t even raced my first domestic race yet.
“Historically I’ve run in Lausanne and I have run in Nice before. I’ve run in Paris, and Monte Carlo is my favourite track. So wait and see.”
Would she pursue a show-down with Perec?
Freeman cooed: “Ooh. I don’t go looking to race anybody. I mean, I do very much stick to my program.
“I just like racing the best there is.”
Well, Perec certainly comes under that heading - she won the 1991 Tokyo and 1995 Gothenburg IAAF World Championships and the two previous Olympic 400m titles in Barcelona and Atlanta.
In their epic battle in Atlanta, Perec was forced to run her lifetime quickest of 48.25 to beat Freeman’s 48.63 - making them history’s two fastest athletes whose superlative performances are “unquestioned.”
Yet they have raced only once over 400m since Atlanta; in the Golden League meeting in Brussels on August 23, 1996.
On that occasion, with Perec (lane 4) stalking Freeman (outside in lane 5) the little Australian pulled away after a titanic home-straight struggle to win in 49.48sec to Perec’s 49.72sec.
Since then, Perec has managed to avoid Freeman, admitting after she returned briefly to Paris: “I have so much sadness inside me.
“I missed the most important rendezvous I ever had with myself. I cracked.
“That’s all. I cracked when I shouldn’t have cracked. I was defeated. I could only think of one thing: go, far away. Fast.”
Perec said she believes she would have run faster than the 49.11sec Freeman clocked to win Olympic gold.
She added: “I have never been afraid of Freeman and I’m still not afraid of her.”
Be that as it may, no-one was more disappointed than Freeman when Perec skipped Sydney because she had allegedly been threatened with violence on the secured floor of her Darling Harbour hotel; a claim rejected by hotel security staff and the NSW Police.
Freeman genuinely has always enjoyed racing Perec and still rates her own achievements against the measure of Perec.
Can Perec return?
Certainly, said Freeman: “She has the talent and the experience. She has the physical assets as well as mental toughness.
“Support is around her I’m sure, from her family and friends and her country.”