Yesterday's Olympian of the day

Maurice Greene

Sometime during the afternoon of Super Saturday, Michael Johnson sauntered down the track at the Athletics stadium in Sydney -- his first appearance in public, there. He wore a fully zipped up sweatsuit, a discman was hung on his belt, large earphones blocked out the applause of the houseful crowd as he walked on, all by himself, listening to his preferred music.

A while later, he turned out for the 400m heats and he ran as he had walked. All by himself, listening to the voices in his head that told him when to ease clear of the field, when to ease up, when to almost jog across the finish line while his competitors struggled to catch up with him.

To watch Michael Johnson run is a marvellous experience. There is something about that smooth glide down the lap, that captivates you with its effortless grace.

To watch Michael Johnson is boring. It is like he is not human. He doesn't connect, somehow, with the spectator. He will race for them -- and they will admire and applaud. But he will not get their pulses pounding.

Look at it this way -- the results of some races are foregone conclusions, even before they are run. A Marion Jones racing anyone on earth over the 100m. A Michael Johnson lining up for the 400m.

So why would we watch? Simply because there is an electricity about the true champions and for a minute or two, we too are touched by that electricity. For those few instants in time that we watch a Marion Jones spout wings and fly, we too fly with her.

But for us to feel that electricity, the champion has to release it, share it with us. Jones does. Johnson -- insular, locked deep within himself, marooned on a planet all his own -- does not. It is not a fault -- it is just the way he is.

It is for this quality -- of exuding electricity, of touching us with it, of giving us wings and helping us fly -- that we chose Maurice Greene as our Olympian of the Day.

He can run fast. Faster than any human being on earth. But that is incidental. What he does in a way all his own, is electrify, energise, the audience, enfold us in his aura.

That roll of the shoulders, that swagger, that lizard-like way his tongue keeps poking out, licking at his lips and even extending beyond as though to taste the very air around him... his rolling, bouncing walk down the track, and back again... his very obvious, and very vocally expressed, delight in himself and his sporting prowess...

Maurice Greene revels in being Maurice Greene. And he makes no bones about it. He believes he is the greatest thing on earth, the finest athlete to have ever stalked the athletics arena --- and if you are within earshot, he will tell you so, loud and clear.

In lesser men, it would be arrogance. In Maurice Greene, it is an endearing character trait. Because we can see that there is not a trace of malice in him. Have you seen a new-born child, waving its arms in the air, delighting in the physicality of it all? That child acts as if it invented the art of waving hands and legs in the air. That it is the greatest arm and leg-waver in history.

That is Maurice Greene -- a little baby who has discovered the art of running. Who delights in running. And who wishes us to share in that delight.

Out on the track, he becomes a part of us, and we a part of him. Into our drab lives, he brings excitement, joy. He takes us by the hand, and he makes us run. Faster than man has ever run before.

And that is why Maurice Greene is our Olympian of the Day -- if he did not exist, we would have had to invent him.