Finally. Incredibly. Unbelievably. Proof that pride comes before a fall. Michael Johnson and Maurice Greene got it on in Sacramento yesterday. Neither finished. Both wound up writhing on the track as little known John Capel stole the thunder.
The US Olympic Trials ended in shock and some horror. In the no backdoor, no second chances format which the Americans have devised, Capel goes to Sydney. Michael Johnson, the Olympic gold medallist and world-record holder, and Greene, the world champion, will be absent from the 200-metres final.
It was a day of portents. The semi-final heat had viewers calling in to their networks complaining that the programme might not be as advertised.
While Greene and Johnson exploded down lanes four and five respectively, John Capel nipped past them both on the straight to win in 20.03.
Capel, a football star at the University of Florida, had turned in the second-fastest time of the day on Saturday and his vein of form continued through the weekend.
Come the final, a modest qualifying-time saw Greene shunted to lane two and Johnson in lane five. Johnson burst away well on the gun but dropped to the track after 50 metres. Greene, going strong, lasted another 50 metres before he too pulled up holding his leg. Capel, Floyd Heard and Coby Miller streaked away to the one-two-three.
Not for the first time before or during a head-to-head showdown with a vaunted, mouthy rival, Michael Johnson found himself nursing an injury and denying it was an excuse.
Having finished the heats on Saturday with the best time of the day, he announced that he had felt a pull in his quadricep. His coach announced they would wait until warm-up time to decide on whether Johnson would run. In the end, Johnson showed up. Greene showed no signs of injury.
Thus, in a sea of tears ended a week which had seen rivalry between the two ratcheted up on a daily basis until it became comical to all but Michael Johnson and Maurice Greene.
Johnson, stiff and slightly pompous, Greene slick and fast talking criss-crossed in each others slip streams through the 200 metres heats on Saturday afternoon and, unable to think of any more insults to exchange, took to laughing at each other.
Initially, there was a superficial symmetry between the women's event and the men's. The two fiercest rivals, Marion Jones and Inger Miller, were drawn in the lanes next to each other for the semi-finals.
Miller had fed the hacks a steady stream of big talk about her rivalry with Jones all week, but yesterday she got a short sharp lesson in the difference between talking the talk and walking the walk.
Not once but twice. Beaten easily in the semi-final, Miller got closer in the final, but not by much. Jones finished a couple of paces ahead in 21.94, with Miller coming through on 22.09 and Nancy Perry running third in 22.38. Rivalry? What rivalry? Jones, who qualified for the long-jump and 100 metres in the opening two days of the trials, reckons that the 200 metres will be the easiest segment of her chutzpah laden "drive for five" in Sydney.
