Maurice Greene in action in the heats of the men's 100m (© Getty Images)
Here’s an odd thing. If you listed the dozen Olympic or World champions competing in the Norwich Union Indoor Grand Prix at Birmingham on Friday night the name Maurice Greene wouldn’t be among them. It doesn’t seem right somehow.
Yet it speaks volumes for Greene’s status in world athletics that despite relinquishing the last of his titles in Athens last summer, he is still the headline attraction at a meeting featuring such exulted athletes as Kenenisa Bekele, Yelena Isinbayeva, Veronica Campbell, Carolina Klüft and Kelly Holmes. He’s just got that star thing, I guess.
Greene’s no stranger to top billing, of course. Yet it’s a sure sign of changed times that the only label attached to the 30 year-old former World and Olympic champion’s name these days – apart from the old favourite ‘Kansas Canonball’ tag – is World indoor record holder.
Greene’s indoor performances have always been treated as something of a footnote to his highly-charged outdoor career. Not surprisingly, perhaps, given his summer-time achievements. But they merit some attention, for between 1998 and 2001 he set no less than three World indoor 60m records, including the current figures of 6.39, and in 1999 he became the World indoor 60m champion on the way to his most dominant outdoor season.
That was then. This year started with the current World indoor champion, Jason Gardener, threatening to eclipse Greene’s figures from the record books – not something that seems likely following Gardener’s stuttering form in Sheffield last weekend. This week France’s Ronald Pognon took Gardener’s European record before he too claimed the World mark would soon be his.
As for Greene, his attitude, as always, is simply ‘bring it on’. “I don’t even know who’s in the race,” he says of Friday night’s challenge, insisting his days as top dog are not yet over. “I’m sure I can rise to the occasion and produce a great performance. I’m going to win the World Championships – that’s my goal, simple.”
The memory of finishing third in Athens is clearly a painful bruise to Greene’s pride. “It was my mistake,” he says of the Olympic final. “I lost it because of things I did. Not accomplishing my goal in that race really hurts.”
Nevertheless, after a couple of lean years following the motorbike accident that left him with a broken left leg, Greene showed a return to form in 2004 and his Olympic bronze medal could still be a step back towards the very top. “I have high hopes for 2005,” he says. “Last year I proved that I’m still a force to be reckoned with and I can beat anyone when I get all the elements of my race right.”
As for the World 100m record – the other title that’s slipped from Greene’s grasp in recent years – he says: “I don’t chase World records anymore, I let them come to me. It’ll come back to me, eventually.”
Collins eager to get back in the winning lane
Greene certainly hasn’t picked an easy race to make his 2005 debut. Aside from Gardener and fellow Briton Mark Lewis-Francis, the 16-strong field includes the man who took Greene’s World crown in 2003, Kim Collins of St Kitts and Nevis, and the man who pushed him into bronze medal position in Athens, Portugal’s Francis Obikwelu. Add two fellow Americans who’ve already run 6.53 this year – Leonard Scott and Jason Smoots – and that’s quite a line up.
Collins, who won a World indoor silver at the National Indoor Arena in 2003, is also happy to get back on track at the start of a year in which he hopes to defend his World 100m crown.
“Everybody thinks I am a one shot wonder so I have to come back and prove myself and prove them wrong,” he says. “I have won the Commonwealth Games, but everybody says the Americans were not there so I have to come back and win the World Championships again.”
Collins has an indoor best of 6.53 from 2001 and he may well need to improve on that if he’s to come out ahead on Friday night. “It’s always good to race the best and on Friday it is the best in the world,” he said. “I’m looking forward to competing against such a strong field. This will be a big year for me and I plan to defend my World 100m title in Helsinki. Before then I want to perform well over 60m and kick start my year in winning form.”
The dash will be the blistering climax of some two and a half hours of action at the NIA, including some of the highest quality fields yet assembled for this indoor season, and highlighted by four potential World record attempts.
Holmes returns to compete on British soil
For many of the home fans the high point will be Kelly Holmes’ return to an English track for the first time since her Athens triumphs. The double Olympic champion will face the Ait Hammou sisters from Morocco, Mina and Seltana, and Namibia’s Agnes Samaria over 1000m. Samaria, a Commonwealth Games bronze medallist, will present a stiff challenge to the Dame of middle distance running as she broke her national 800m record in Stockholm this week, becoming only the fifth runner this year to dip under two minutes.
Since her gentle return to competition in Glasgow three weeks ago, Holmes has been back to her training base in South Africa to sharpen her fitness. No doubt she’ll need that extra edge in Birmingham, for this will be a stiffer test of the state of her post-Olympics competitive resolve and could well set the tone for the rest of her season.
Holmes’ race won’t be the only distance running treat for the crowd in Birmingham, however, for the NIA’s reputation as a World record track continues to attract some of the world’s top middle and long distance athletes.
Bekele going for yet another of Geb’s World records
Two years ago Haile Gebrselassie set the World two mile record of 8:04.69 in Birmingham. Like most things he’s done on the track, those figures will come under fire from fellow Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele whose hunger for success has survived the tragic loss of his fiancée at the start of the year.
“Despite everything I achieved last year, I am still driven to do more and more in athletics,” says the World and Olympic 10,000m champion. “I am still as hungry to do as much as I possibly can in this sport, and targetting the two mile record in Birmingham is the next of those targets.”
The 22 year-old will be hoping his form’s improved since the end of January, however, when he was surprisingly beaten over 3000m in Boston by Ireland’s Alastair Cragg, clocking a modest 7:41.42. Last year he took his master’s World 5000m record in Birmingham and he’ll be after another $30,000 bonus this time around.
Perhaps he’ll share it with his younger brother, Tariku, who’ll be one of the pace makers, but he’ll have to look out for his countryman, Markos Geneti, who beat Gebrselassie here last year and has a 2005 best for 3000m of 7:40.72.
Lagat faces Rotich, Heshko and Baala at 1500m
One of Gebrselassie’s lesser achievements is to be the second fastest indoor 1500m runner in history. The second fastest outdoor runner over that distance is Bernard Lagat, who will take on fellow Kenyan Laban Rotich on Friday, plus World indoor silver medallist, Ivan Heshko, and World outdoor silver medallist, Mehdi Baala of France. Heshko, in particular, is in fine form – he set a new Ukrainian record of 3:33.99 in Karlsruhe last weekend.
Lagat, the World indoor 3000m champion, will start as favourite following his blistering mile in Fayateville last Saturday. The Olympic silver medallist’s run of 3:49.89 made him the third quickest indoor miler ever, behind Hicham El Guerrouj and Eamonn Coghlan. En route to that amazing time, he also ran the second quickest 1500m of the year, 3:33.34.
This will be the last outing of Lagat’s indoor season before he prepares for an outdoor campaign in which his goals are simply “to run faster than I have ever run before”.
Defar and Dibaba to fight for 3000m supremacy
Ethiopians feature prominently in the women’s distance events too. Last year at the meeting, Meseret Defar and Tirunesh Dibaba became the third and fourth quickest 3000m runners in history. This time they’ll be hoping to push each other towards Berhane Adere’s World record of 8:29.15.
In 2004 Defar went onto become a World indoor and Olympic champion, and she leads this year’s World lists with 8:30.05. But it will be the World outdoor champion Dibaba who starts as favourite following her demolition of Adere’s 5000m record in Boston on 29 January. Clearly the 19 year-old wonder is well up for the challenge.
“I ran a personal best in Birmingham last year and the quality of the field again this year means that a fast time is possible,” she said.
Hard on their heels will be Britain’s Jo Pavey. She broke Liz McColgan’s long standing British record in Birmingham last year, and a few weeks ago she followed Adere in Stuttgart to clock the year’s third best time, 8:42.46, putting Elly Van Hulst’s European record of 8:33.62 within her sights.
Another World Indoor record for Isinbayeva?
More records could tumble in the women’s Pole Vault where Yelena Isinbayeva will be aiming to inch the bar up another notch following her latest record height – 4.87 in Donetsk on Saturday. As the Russian has cleared 4.92 outdoors and, she claims, 4.95 in training this winter, a mere 4.88 looks well within reach in a city where she rose to 4.89 on a cold and blustery day last summer and a country where she’s set three of her 11 World records.
“Everybody knows how much I enjoy competing in Britain,” says the 22-year-old. “I always seem to break records there, or at least come very close. As Olympic champion there will be more attention on me this year, but hopefully I can respond to that pressure with another record in Birmingham.”
Isinbayeva will renew her rivalry with Svetlana Feofanova, who’s back in competition after missing the Donetsk meeting. Feofanova has vaulted ‘only’ 4.53 this year and a bigger threat could come from the new Polish record holder Anna Rogowska.
Klüft to line-up in LJ and 60H
Top billing in the other women’s field event goes to multi-event star Carolina Klüft. The Swede’s only previous appearance in Britain was also in this stadium when she won the first of her senior global titles – the World indoor pentathlon gold in 2003. Klüft will take on Britain’s Olympic bronze medallist Kelly Sotherton in both the Long Jump and the 60m Hurdles.
Klüft leads the World season's list for the Long Jump with 6.84, but Sotherton set a new personal best of 6.43 in Sheffield last weekend and is clearly relishing the chance to compete against Klüft in her home town. Britain’s number one jumper Jade Johnson is also in the field. After winning the national championships with a last gasp 6.50 leap last Sunday, the European and Commonwealth Games medallist will be searching for some consistent form and confidence to take her to the European Indoors in Madrid next month.
The mutli-eventers will have a tougher task in the 60m Hurdles, an event that includes this year’s fastest hurdler, Irina Shevchenko of Russia, the new British record holder and third fastest in the world, Sarah Claxton, and USA’s Olympic bronze medallist Melissa Morrison.
Olympic champion Veronica Campbell heads the list of women sprinters. The Jamaican goes in the 200m and she’ll be aiming for her 25th consecutive victory, an unbeaten run stretching back five years. A 7.09 60m in Fayateville last weekend shows the 22-year-old is already in sharp shape, although she’ll be hard pressed by USA’s Muna Lee who ran 22.99 in Boston.
Matthew Brown for the IAAF
