Perec's Paris Worlds quest

Two weeks ago it was Russia’s Olympic 400m Hurdles champion Irina Privalova who first announced and then returned to the track after a two year absence, now in today’s L’Equipe newspaper, an even more illustrious and elusive star, Marie-José Pérec, the triple Olympic and double World individual sprint champion has also announced her comeback after a similar competitive absence since 2000.

Pérec, 34 years-old, is France’s most enigmatic sports heroine, who given the front cover and two subsequent pages of coverage devoted to her in today's newspaper and a separate television interview, continues to stir the imagination. She last ran competitively on 8 July 2000 in Nice, where over 400m she came third (50.32), behind Britain’s Katherine Merry (50.05) and Jamaica’s Lorraine Graham (now Fenton - 50.07). 

Famously of course, Pérec's name also appeared on one other race start list, when two months later she mysteriously flounced out of the Sydney Olympics. As such, on Friday 22 September her lane in the fifth heat of the women’s 400m first round in Sydney remained vacant, when the starter called the competitors to their blocks.

Twice Olympic champion at 400 metres, Pérec took a memorable 200 – 400m golden double at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, a feat which had only been accomplished once before by USA's Valerie Brisco-Hooks in the East European boycotted Los Angeles Games of 1984.

World 400m Champion in 1991 and 1995, Pérec is undoubtedly one of the all-time greats at the one lap sprint, possessing such a powerful allure that comeback stories have regularly been conjured up in the last two years.

However, Pérec’s claims today seem to be more substantially based, and if they truly do represent a return to the track, then it will be very much to Athletics benefit, as she is one of the greatest icons in the sport's history.

Pérec confirmed that she had originally planned a comeback in 2001 but after three months training under the coaching advice of Ted Wheeler in Iowa, USA, injury curtailed any hopes for a return, and over the summer of 2001 she just trained lightly to retain her basic fitness.

The World Championships in Paris this summer have always been her goal, and with that in mind Pérec in November 2001 began intensive training on the French Island of Guadeloupe with training partners Anita Mormand and Francine Landre, under the coaching eyes of Raymond Gillet. However, yet again injury problems set in, with Perec experiencing tendon trouble, which meant that the 2002 summer was also lost to competition.

Pérec is now based in San Diego, California, and is being guided by Brooks Johnson, a former advisor to Harry ‘Butch’ Reynolds, the multiple World medallist who memorably set a World 400m record of 43.29 in 1988, the year in which he also took the individual Olympic silver medal. Pérec first tied up with Brooks Johnson in Orlando, Florida in October 2002, before jointly moving to California in January of this year.

She intends her first competitive outing to be this spring over 100m or 200m, either in South Africa (Roodepoort 28 March or Pretoria 4 April) or in the USA at the Texas Relays in Austin. Her tentative programme for 400m racing includes a first race start in May or June, as part of a four or five race campaign building up to the World Championships in Paris in August.

Given the level of media and public interest in her life especially in her native France, Pérec was noticably keen not to disclose her exact return date to that country.

Also, far from believing the standard in the women’s 400m has stood still in her absence, Pérec recognises that the challenge she will face in Paris is stronger than ever before, with a lot of women in the 49 seconds range - Guevara, Fenton, and the “very dangerous” (World Champion) Mbacke, Freeman of course and Catherine Merry. Perhaps in total, there are even six or even seven realistic competitors for the World title, instead of just two or three top athletes when she took her Olympic titles in 1996.