Despite being at the end of a hard season, Maria Mutola will be going for a record at the opening of the new athletics stadium in Johannesburg
ATHLETICS: Julian Drew
WHILE most of the athletes attending the two-day meeting to inaugurate Johannesburg’s new R97-million athletics stadium this weekend are at the tail- end of a long and arduous season, there is at least one who will be looking to produce the best performance of her
That athlete is Mozambique’s Maria Mutola who was disqualified at last month’s world championships in Gothenburg, missing out on the chance to defend her world title and she has since not found the kind of race to unleash the African record which she knows is waiting inside her.
The rarified air of Johannesburg will almost certainly help athletes in the explosives events set respectable times and even a jaded Linford Christie or Frankie Fredericks might produce a sub-10 second performance in Saturday’s 100m race.
But if it is a truly world-class performance you are looking for, then be sure to be present when Mutola lines up for the 800m on Sunday afternoon. She was in the best shape of her life in Gothenburg and was looking for a 1:54 time in the final before fate took its course in her semi-final.
So confident was she of winning that she had already planned to send the Mercedes Benz she would have won as world champion back to Maputo. Mutola already has one at her home base in Eugene, Oregon, courtesy of her victory at the 1993 world championships in Stuttgart.
She has now come to terms with that setback but she has still frustratingly not translated all those months of preparation into lowering her 800m personal best of 1:55.19 from 1994.
Three days after Gothenburg she went to Zurich where she set her African record last year, but poor pace- making by Canada’s Charmaine Crooks saw her settle for a victory over the new world champion in her absence, Cuba’s Ana Quirot, in the fastest time of the year until then of 1:55.93.
Ten days later in Brussels she was to make an attempt on the 1 000m world record to boost her Grand Prix points and try and win the overall Grand Prix title. “We arranged for Meredith Rainey to pace me to 800m in 1:58 and I spoke to her beforehand and told her that if she was feeling tired and could feel me close behind her she should move to the outside to let me pass,” said Mutola.
“After 500m I could see she was tired but she didn’t move so I went to pass her on the outside at the same time as she moved across and she spiked me on the thigh.” That would have spelt trouble for her record attempt with half the race remaining but she dug deep to chip more than a second off East German Christine Wachtel’s record for a new world mark of 2:29.34.
Mutola has not had much luck with pacemakers this year. In July she missed Wachtel’s 1 000m record by a few hundredths of a second after rabbit Leticia Vriesde of Surinam decided to complete the race for her own Grand Prix points total and left Mutola with too much to do in the second half of the race in Stockholm.
These experiences led her to request the organisers of the last meet before the Grand Prix final to leave out a pacemaker. “I wanted to take control from the begnning and run my own race,” said Mutola. But the weather in Berlin was cold and rainy and she ran a slow
Although she won the Grand Prix final in Monaco three weeks ago in the fastest time in the world this year of 1:55.72, along with the R470 000 prize money that went with the overall Grand Prix title, she is still desperately hunting a new African record.
On Monday she retained her All Africa Games title, running for the first time at these championships in front of Mozambique’s president Joaquim Chissano. Mutola posted an effortless time of 1:56.99. “I was going for a time of 1:57 or 1:58 just to steer clear of trouble with the other runners but it didn’t feel like I ran so fast,” said Mutola afterwards.
It was an impressive performance considering she only arrived two days earlier from Eugene and its nine-hour time difference. By Sunday she should have shaken off any remnants of jet lag. “We have asked for a pacemaker in Johannesburg to take me through 400m in 56 seconds. If I get that then I will be happy although it would be better if somebody could take me to 600m,” said Mutola.
Unfortunately there is nobody in South Africa who could take Mutola to 600m at the required pace and it is Rand Afrikaans University’s Edith Otterman who has been given the task of taking Mutola to the bell in 56 seconds.
While Jarmila Kratochvilova’s world record of 1:53.28 does not look to be in danger, Mutola could improve on her seventh position on the world all-time list if she gets it right on Sunday.
With those ahead of her on that list coming from an era when drugs were standard procedure in training programmes of the Eastern Bloc countries, such a performance would certainly be worthy of this weekend’s auspicious occasion.
An added incentive will be the presence of a large contingent of Mutola’s relatives, including her mother and father who will see her race for the first time on Sunday.
On Monday she is also hoping to recieve the Mazda she won for her 1 000m world record so that her family can attend the presentation ceremony.