Powell already has Helsinki on his mind - World Athletics Final

MonacoThe most overused word in world sport might be pressure but the cool Jamaican who today confirmed his status as the best male sprinter in the sport knows the effect it can have.

Asafa Powell had floated into the Olympic Games in Athens last month as the clear favourite to win the 100 metres. He had arrived on the back of two stunning defeats of defending Olympic champion Maurice Greene and he did it with reserves in the tank. He was slowing down when he won in London and Zurich.

Those performances had sent him to the top of the IAAF World Ranking, a position where today he ensured himself as No 1 with another glorious victory at the World Athletics Final in Monaco.

His time was 9.98, a meeting record, another marker to the rest of the world. But when it mattered perhaps the most in 2004, it did not happen.

In Athens, having looked so much the part, Powell was only fifth in the final as Justin Gatlin, of the USA, won. Look at his record this year and it is remarkable. Of his last nine 100m 'final's, Powell has won all but one, that of the Olympics. Pressure can deliver the cruellest blow when it is least expected, like it did for him at Games.

But the warning has been issued that at the World Championships in Helsinki next year, Powell, 21, is going to overcome what happened in Athens.

He made that clear yesterday. In both his words and in his performance, a tremendous run where he won the race over the opening 20m and drove away to be the only runner in the field to break 10 seconds. Portugal's Francis Obikwelu was closest to him in second in 10.10.

Powell said yesterday: "I was the favourite going into Athens, so I was disappointed. But I was happy having made the final at my first Olympics.

"This victory today shows the world that I am the best and I should have won in Athens.

"I am the World No 1 now. It all bodes well for next year and I believe I can win the World title in Helsinki."

Though Gatlin was not here, the seeds have been set down for what should be a thrilling confrontation next summer. The American produced in Athens yet Powell has been a force so dominant that he will now spend the winter putting right what went wrong at the Olympics.

Watching him today, what did go wrong? He has a good start, poise in the drive stage of the race when the speed is increased and enough control over the final half. But it is impossible to know when pressure might strike.

Powell's run of 9.91 in Jamaica this year broke a national record that Ray Stewart had established 13 years ago and when the flashlights and cameras have been on him on the Grand Prix circuit, he has hardly blinked, let alone allowed it to trouble his performance.

At the Stade Louis II Stadium, in the final event of the first day of the World Athletics Final, he wanted to end his 100m season with an emphatic message. He did just that.

Sure the pressure of the Olympics is something else and that one defeat might end up being as important to him in his career, than all the victories.

As a rookie on an Olympic stage where he had only been a spectator, via television, before, he was not himself in Athens. Pressure can be a cruel component, even if the machinery has shown no sign of creaking.

But since the Olympics, he has proved he can handle a setback, with victories in Brussels, Rieti, Berlin (200m) and now Monaco.

As he says, he is the World 100m No 1 and in his mind, the countdown to Helsinki has begun.

IAAF