In football weather, with wind, rain and temperatures in the mid-50s, they rolled into the curve as the picture of a perfectly executed power sweep, U.S. sprinters in Lanes 3, 4, 5 and 6 clearing the track of any opposition.
“All that red, white and blue coming around the corner, all in stride, all in unison, it was something amazing to see,” John Capel said.
When they finished the 200-meter final at the World Track and Field Championships, they also had cleared space in the record books with an unprecedented sweep that was more evidence of how much power the young U.S. team is showing at this meet.
Not since wild cards for defending champions were introduced to the world meet in 1997, allowing countries a possible four entries in an event, had athletes from a single country placed 1-2-3-4 until Justin Gatlin, Wallace Spearmon, defending champion Capel and Tyson Gay did it Thursday night at Helsinki Olympic Stadium.
When it was over, they huddled on the track. All four then carried American flags on a victory lap, with Gatlin waving a Finnish flag as well.
“It’s bittersweet,” Gatlin said. “One guy didn’t come home with a medal, yet now he will be in the history books forever.”
So, too, will Gatlin. He joins Maurice Greene of the United States as the only men to win the 100 and the 200 in the 10 outdoor world championships.
The three 200-meter medals were only half the U.S. total from the five Thursday finals. Two of the others came from world-meet debutants: Michelle Perry’s gold in the 100-meter hurdles and Brad Walker’s silver in the pole vault. The third was an unexpected gold by Walter Davis in the triple jump.
Only one of the 14 U.S. medalists so far, 30-year-old shot putter Adam Nelson, is older than 26. None of the eight gold medalists ever had won a world title before.
At 20, baby of a 200-meter group in which the 26-year-old Capel is the oldest, Spearmon figures time eventually will be on his side in a fierce competition just to make the U.S. team. After all, the United States went 1 to 4 even without defending Olympic champion Shawn Crawford, 27, whose late withdrawal with a foot injury gave Spearmon a chance to compete.
“They will be 30 before I am,” Spearmon said. “Hopefully, I will still be running when they are done.”
Gatlin, 23, has a running start on what may become one of the greatest sprint careers ever. In the last two years, he has won Olympic and world gold medals at 100 meters, Olympic bronze and world gold at 200. A victory in Saturday’s sprint relay would allow Gatlin to join Greene, Carl Lewis (twice) and Michael Johnson, all Americans, as the only men to win three gold medals in a single world meet.
“If Justin wants to dominate for a long time, he can,” said retired sprinter Frankie Fredericks of Namibia, who won silver medals in the 100 and 200 at consecutive Olympics.
For the second straight year, Gatlin had to fight the urge to feel satisfied with just the 100-meter title. This time, he overcame it. “I knew the 200 will seal my fate as one of the greatest right now in track and field, and that’s what I wanted to do,” Gatlin said. “I had to roll my sleeves up, go out there and run very fast.”
Running in Lane 6, Gatlin knew he also needed patience because the staggered start prevented him from seeing the other U.S. runners until the straightaway. So he had to wait out Gay’s expected early move (“I could hear him talking–`Come on, got to get it, come on,”‘ Gatlin said) and have enough left for Spearmon’s expected fast finish.
Gatlin finished the curve so far ahead that Spearmon chose to run for second rather than risk tying up and getting no medal. Running into a slight headwind, Gatlin won in 20.04 seconds, with Spearmon clocking in at 20.20, Capel 20.31 and Gay 20.34.
Whatever friction apparently had existed among the four, as a result of a dinner at which young athletes waited on their older teammates, dissolved before the race when Capel and Gatlin counseled world-meet debutants Spearmon and Gay.
“They told us to keep our heads on straight and don’t worry about anything,” Spearmon said.
Walker and the other vaulters had plenty to worry about with the swirling winds and wet runway. Rens Blom of the Netherlands had the lowest winning height (19 feet, one-half inch) since the first world meet in 1983. Walker cleared 18-10 1/4.
“It wasn’t really about having a good technique but who had the most guts,” said bronze medalist Pavel Gerasimov of Russia.
Olympic hurdles champion Joanna Hayes of the U.S. showed some in her determination to finish, dead last or not, after she smacked and then got tangled up in the final hurdle. Hayes had lost her balance–and a likely silver medal–when she clipped the previous hurdle while concentrating too much on trying to catch Perry.
It has been hard for anyone to catch Perry, 14th in the 2004 Olympic heptathlon, since she decided in May to focus on one event this season rather than the seven of the heptathlon. Running 12.66 into a substantial headwind, she was an easy winner once Hayes hit trouble.
Thursday, that hurdle was the only thing to get in U.S. runners’ way.
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phersh@tribune.com
