Montgomery throws down challenge to Greene

A standard eve-of-competition news conference was drifting to a close with the world's swiftest man Maurice Greene lounging in his seat and content to answer in monosyllables.

Citing fatigue, the Olympic and world 100 metres champion had withdrawn from last Saturday's Grand Prix final in Paris but had agreed to attend a Friday briefing to help promote the meeting.

Then came a leading candidate for the most provocative question of the season. In view of a series of defeats on the European circuit, asked a journalist with a pronounced antipodean twang, shouldn't Greene now be known as "Slow-Mo"?

Greene's eyes flashed, his body tensed and, stabbing the air with his right forefinger for emphasis, he showed a hitherto unsuspected eloquence.

"Let me put things in perspective," he said. "Everybody thinks my season has been a disaster but I am still the world's fastest man."

Greene then outlined his case. He had clocked the season's best time, won the U.S. championships (in most years as difficult as the Olympic Games or world championships) and won three of the seven Golden League events. His closest rivals, fellow American Tim Montgomery and Britain's European champion Dwain Chambers, had each won two.

"My problem is that it has been a tough year with deaths in my family that really distracted me and I had to get over those problems," he added. "That was a big problem with my life at the time."

Still visibly annoyed but satisfied that he had made his point, Greene again relaxed. Little more than 24 hours later, his world was suddenly tilted on its axis.

WORLD RECORD

Montgomery, benefiting from a perfect start, a following wind right on the legal limit of two metres a second and a burning desire to beat Chambers shot across the line at the modest Charlety stadium in a world record 9.78 seconds. Greene's previous record of 9.79 set three years ago in Athens was ancient history.

The first instinctive reaction from Montgomery was to show his delight at beating Chambers. Only then did he look at the clock. Still he did not fully comprehend the enormity of his achievement until coach Trevor Graham picked him up in his arms in delight.

"At 30 metres, I felt no-one beside me so I just dug in even deeper and kept running and kept running and the world record came," Montgomery told reporters when the initial hysteria had died down.

The epic run turned the meeting on his head. Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj was midway through a news conference celebrating his premature crowning as men's overall Grand Prix champion when the news came through. Hasty calculations on complicated scoring tables showed Montgomery had just edged him for the title.

El Guerrouj, who was planning to celebrate his 28th birthday with a party of about 30 people, was suddenly short of the $100,000 he would have earned as overall champion. He swallowed his disappointment, congratulated Montgomery and went on his way.

Greene's initial reaction was to look at the wind gauge. The reading stood steady at 2.0.

"He ran a very great race, it's all you can say," Greene said. "He's very talented. He's been gaining confidence and getting better and better."

WELL TIMED

Track and field, the central sport of the Olympic Games, has been struggling in a competitive market place. The European-based Golden series, cut from seven to six meetings next year, attracts enthusiastic crowds and the world's top athletes.

But the sport gets little publicity in the United States and the 20,000-capacity Charlety stadium was less than half full on Saturday.

Montgomery's run could not have come at a better time for the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). The men's 100 metres is the equivalent for them of the world heavyweight boxing title, or the Winter Olympics downhill ski race, but there has not been a genuine challenger to Greene since he won the first of his three world titles in Athens five years ago.

Now, less than a year before the world championships in Paris and less than two years before the Athens Olympics, Montgomery is indisputably the world number one and there is another genuine contender for the title in Chambers, who clocked 9.87 in second place on Saturday.

Montgomery has been making noises for some time about supplanting Greene but when given the opportunity to boast on Saturday he graciously declined.

One performance, Montgomery said, did not make him better than Greene. "He has proved himself in major championships," Montgomery said. "He is still great."

Instead, Montgomery preferred to concentrate on his own potential. Was there a limit to the world record, he was asked.

"There is no limit," he replied. "World records are made to be broken. Over and over and over again."