MICHAEL JOHNSON, the newly crowned world record holder at 200 metres, was contemplating the dark prospect of history repeating itself after his first defeat in two years at the distance in the Bislett Stadium last night.

His conqueror now, as then, was Frankie Fredericks, who shattered the myth of the American's invincibility by bolting out of the starting blocks and then holding his composure and nerve sufficiently to win by three hundredths of a second in 19.82 seconds.

In doing so, Fredericks established his third African record in the space of 11 days and now, after languishing in the shadow of his training partner Linford Christie for so long, he could be seen to strike gold in Atlanta.

For Johnson, the perspectives are vastly different. At 4,00 metres he is still as authoritative as ever but now, as he ruminated on the truism that defeat occasionally overtakes even the greatest, lie was hounded by his experience of Barcelona four years ago.

Then, a tummy upset shattered his Olympic dreams and now, one suspects, he may already be invaded by the first manifestations of self doubt after being run out of the race of the year to date.

He lost it right at the start when the Namibian came out of the blocks so quickly, that the initial reaction among many in the crowd, was that he had beaten the gun. He would later deny this vehemently but, even by his standards, his early advantage was big enough to be suspicious.

Johnson was distancing himself diplomatically from the controversy when questioned about it at the post race press conference but acknowledged the futility of trying to retrieve the advantage from a sprinter of Fredericks' class.

"You don't give Frankie a metre start and expect to survive but I'm not too disappointed" he said. "I still have some work to do on my start but at this point, am, basically, where I want to be for the Olympics."

Central to the Namibian's hopes was the challenge of staying with Johnson until they straightened out for home and this he did admirably. "I knew that, if I was in contact with him at that stage, I would win but it was still desperately close at the finish," he said.

Johnson's eclipse wasn't the only shock on a cold, blustery night when the quality of the performances was often totally disproportionate to the bleak conditions. Beaten, too was the women's world 100 metres champion. Gwen Torrence who had looked so strong in Switzerland only 48 hours earlier.

Now, she was seeing only the back of her great rival, Marlene Ottey as the Jamaican, graceful as ever, built on a fluent start to accelerate away from Torrence over the last 30 metres.

There was a heavy element of inevitability also, about Noureddine Morceli's victory in the Dream Mile.

After the American, Steve Holman had flattered briefly, Morceli quickly restored an element of realism to the occasion by cruising into the lead on the third lap and thereafter was gone from the pursuit.

Marcus O'Sullivan was credited with yet another sub four minute mile with a time of three minutes 52.90 seconds in seventh place with Niall Bruton two places behind him.

Daniel Caulfield's attempt to earn a belated nomination for the Olympic squad in the 800 metres, ended in heartache when he could finish only fourth in the "B" race won by Australia's Paul Cleary.

His time of 1:48.34 was almost two seconds outside the qualifying mark for Atlanta.