Patrick Johnson (Australia) (© Getty Images)
Canberra, AustraliaAs stunning as Patrick Johnson's 9.88sec 100m run in Perth on 8 February was, his coach Esa Peltola is confident that Johnson can still improve every segment of his race.
And if he can do that, he will certainly be in elite company with the likes of Tim Montgomery, the new world record-holder (at 9.78sec) for the event.
Johnson competes over 100m on Saturday in the Telstra A-series at the Australian Institute of Sport track in Canberra for the first time since his phenomenal but illegally wind-assisted sprint in the Perth A-series a fortnight ago.
He will race five-times national 100m title-winner Matt Shirvington among others in the 100m heats at 3.53pm and, barring mishap, then in the final at 5pm.
Johnson, 30, is so hot at the moment that whenever he races there is the possibility of history in the making. Perhaps a wind-legal (tailwind of 2m/s or slower) sub-10sec 100m or a sub-20sec 200m. Last weekend at the Campbelltown A-series he ran 20.25sec.
Esa Peltola, the Finn who persuaded the AIS to give Johnson a track scholarship in 1997 to entice him away from the incentives offered then by rugby league, has analysed Johnson's Perth run and has found room to move.
“Perth wasn't perfect. He's still got things to improve. Every 10m segment [from start to finish] can improve,” Peltola said. “He was slightly tense in Perth, right from beginning to end.”
“Relaxation is his major asset and once he gets that going it's the key to him improving every segment. And also with his physical training, he hasn't moved to fast force yet.”
Johnson is 177cm tall and surprisingly light at 73kg, his legs being the least impressive aspect of his physical presence.
“We never worked to get big legs. We worked to get strong and powerful. Size doesn't mean power. To me, size can be a problem because he's also a 200m runner.”
But in fact at the top end of his leg strength training Johnson routinely loads a huge 700kgs onto the leg-press machine and does three repetitions, bending the knee to an angle of 90-degrees before trying to kick out against the foot plate.
“His legs are not massive, but they're certainly not weak.”
In his Perth race, Johnson's transmission from the starting block through a 19-stride acceleration phase was awesome en route to his 44-stride performance.
His top-end velocity was a stunning 0.84sec which he held through two 10m segments from 60m to 80m. This is world class speed right up there with Sydney Olympic champion and three-time world 100m champion Maurice Greene.
The statistics show though, in his Paris World record run of 9.78 Montgomery already hit 0.84sec for the segment 40m-50m, then hit top gear surprisingly early from 50m-60m with a 0.83sec split, before hitting another 0.84sec segment from 60m-70m.
Montgomery's segment in 0.83sec equates to a peak velocity of 12.1m/sec, a speed only Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis had ever officially achieved during a 100m.
Jana Pittman, the young Commonwealth Games 400m Hurldes gold medallist will make her season’s debut in Canberra at her specialist event after dabbling with the flat so far this year.
“I'm test piloting this new stride pattern and this is also the first time I've tested my new body,” Pittman said. “I'm in unchartered waters,” she believes.
If there is a tailwind down the backstraight or still conditions, Pittman plans to run only 14 strides between each barrier to hurdle five and change down to 15 strides to hurdle eight and run 16 strides to the 10th and final hurdle.
“No-one's done that to my knowledge, no woman has gone 14s to hurdle five,” her coach Phil King believes.
If she can race to plan and not crash-and-burn in the homestraight, Pittman should break through the 54 second time barrier into rarefied air.
Pittman's personal best was the 54.14 she ran in Manchester last July. It was the second fastest time in the world last year. Only Russia's Yuliya Pechonkina broke 54 seconds.
Only 26 women in history have run under 54sec, one of them is King's wife and Seoul Olympic champion Debbie Flintoff-King and another is Andrea Blackett from Barbados.
Blackett, the previous Commonwealth champion, ranks 17th all-time with her best of 53.36 in placing fourth at the 1999 Seville World Championship. She will race Pittman tomorrow.
Cathy Freeman, whose national 300m record Pittman broke in Campbelltown last Saturday, has confined herself to running in the 4x400m relay on Sunday at 1.15pm during the second day of the Canberra heptathlon.
Manchester medallists Bronwyn Eagles and Karyne Di Marco (hammer throw) and Cecilia McIntosh (javelin) are also in action. Kenya's former world record-holder Daniel Komen will race 3000m in Canberra.
Also Australia’s best long jumpers, Olympic silver medalist Jai Taurima fellow Olympic finalist Peter Burge and national title-holder Tim Parravicini will also be in action hoping to qualify for the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Birmingham next month.
They have only tomorrow's A-series meet in Canberra and next Saturday's meet in Melbourne to qualify before the Australian team departs directly from Melbourne to Birmingham.
Queensland's Commonwealth long jump record-holder Bronwyn Thompson heads another talented field in the women’s event.
Thompson cleared a wind-legal best of 6.62m last weekend at the Campbelltown A-series, but must jump 6.74m to qualify for Birmingham where that distance would contend for a medal.
The men need 8.17m to get to the indoor titles (from March 14-16) and 8.20m to qualify for the World (outdoor) Championships in Paris from August 23-31.
By Mike Hurst (Daily and Sunday Telegraph, Australia) for the IAAF
