Michael Finch : Athletics
If the double “MJ” show doesn’t pack out the Ruimsig stadium in Roodepoort tonight, then Athletics South Africa (ASA) is faced with a crisis.
Just the mere presence of the fastest man and fastest woman on earth, Michael Johnson and Marion Jones, in the second of the three-leg Engen Grand Prix Summer Series should be enough to lure even the most part-time of athletics supporters to the scenic track.
That makes it pretty much make or break time.
Often forced to suck the you-know-what when it comes to television, press coverage and public interest, South African athletics finally bumped cricket, rugby and soccer off the back pages this week, received a generous helping of television coverage and looks set to experience its finest hour tonight.
“Basically, we thought that if cricket and rugby can bring out its stars to South Africa, then we should be bringing out the stars in athletics,” says ASA chief executive Bernard Rose. “It’s all about marketability. We don’t want to have to stand back anymore.”
The key to ASA success in bringing the world’s biggest track and field names to South Africa has more to do with the positioning of its season than any amount of money.
Johnson is reputed to have agreed to race in the 200m in both Roodepoort and again in Cape Town next Friday for R100E000, well below the appearance fee he commands in Europe.
“At the end of the day we offer a place to compete before the European outdoor season starts,” Rose says. “It’s a case of rather earn some money than no money at all.”
The presence of the two MJs and a host of international and athletics stars in Roodepoort firmly entrenches South Africa as the second-biggest athletics circuit in the world, bigger than the current European indoor season but behind the European outdoor season.
As British agent Andy Norman puts it, that has helped place South African athletics among the top nations in the world.
“There is no doubt about it. The South African men’s team is the second- strongest athletics team in the world behind Britain,” Norman says. “Sure, the women have a long way to go, but the men are right up there.”
It’s that sort of comment which ASA is hoping will inspire particularly black township youngsters to kick their soccer ball aside in favour of a career in athletics, but it is a long, hard road to change attitudes in a sport that was dominated by whites for so many years.
Johnson will go a long way to help change that image as the star of tonight’s show.
His feats at the 1996 Olympics when, kitted out with his now famous gold Nike track shoes, he ran the fastest 200m of all time – an amazing 19,32 seconds – was arguably one of the biggest single athletics achievements of all time.
Shaving almost three-tenths of a second off his own world mark, it was a performance that shocked the world, and when you consider that the best time of the year in 1998 was Trinidadian Ato Boldon’s 19,88, Johnson’s mark will take a lot of beating.
After adding the 400m title, he became the first athlete to win the 200/400 double at an Olympic Games, and then followed up at the world championships in Athens the following year with a win in the 400m.
The only milestone that has eluded him is countryman Butch Reynold’s 1988 400m world record of 43,29. Johnson’s personal best is just a tenth of a second behind.
“The 400m [world record] is the top of my list, every year, but I think the thing that motivates me the most is just to keep winning. Some people don’t realise how difficult it is out there,” Johnson says.
Fellow American Kevin Braunskill is likely to be the biggest threat to Johnson tonight, but it will nevertheless be a moment to savour for South African champion Marcus la Grange, who lines up in lane four, one lane outside Johnson.
For Jones, her re-appearance in South Africa will bring back fond memories.
At the World Cup in Johannesburg last year she clocked the second-fastest 100m of all time (10,65) and posted a personal best in the 200m (21,62) to head the world lists for 1998.
With only American Chandra Sturrup to push her, it’s unlikely she will challenge that mark at this stage of the season, but expect to see her win with ease.
Also in the line-up this weekend are Olympic 400m hurdles champion Derrick Adkins, who faces South Africa’s biggest track personality, Llewellyn Herbert, and World Cup winner Samuel Matete, while Americans Jerome Young and Antonio Pettigrew make up a star-studded 400m field that also includes Welshman Iwan Thomas and South Africans Arnaud Malherbe and Jopie van Oudtshoorn.