Grant Shimmin ATHLETICS
The pre-event hype has understandably all been about Michael Johnson. After all, he is a double Olympic champion and dual world record holder, with two marks that look well nigh impregnable to his name, so it’s no more than he deserves. But in truth, the Engen Grand Prix Summer Series, which gets out of the starting blocks in Pietersburg tomorrow afternoon, is not going to be all about the man with the golden spikes.
The International Amateur Athletic Federation’s (IAAF) outdoor performance lists for the year thus far feature primarily names from Australia and South Africa, given that their seasons take place early in the year, with the few exceptions being the names of overseas visitors to the two circuits.
The lists for indoor competition, which climatic conditions dictate must predominate in the northern hemisphere at this time of year, are dominated by Europeans and Americans.
Look now, though, and you’ll struggle to find the name of Michael Johnson on either.
A pedestrian – by his standards -46,74 seconds indoors for the 400m at the nondescript American venue of Blacksburg on February 19 is the sole entry.
Let’s be clear about it. Michael Johnson has only one thing on his mind this year and that’s a rather important fortnight in Sydney in the second half of September.
He’s most likely still in a winter training programme, and he’s hardly likely to come out of that to race in South Africa with his sights trained on a point six months away.
That said, Johnson is such a dominant athlete that even without being anywhere near a peak, he’s likely to provide formidable opposition for this country’s best in the 200m, which he will run in Pietersburg and six days later in Pretoria, and the 400m, which he will contest in the final Engen event in Cape Town on March 31.
Johnson, who was due to touch down in Johannesburg yesterday afternoon after missing his Tuesday flight from Atlanta, will, ironically, come up against the man who currently heads the 200m world list.
South Africa’s Marcus la Grange’s performance of 20,35 seconds at Bellville in the Western Province championships, into a headwind, was one of those races that come along once in a blue moon, with everything clicking into place.
However, he confirmed that, with the added benefit of altitude, he’d be setting out to improve on that career- best time. “I’m just going to concentrate on running my own race. If you think about beating Michael, you can be disappointed. That happened to me last year,” he said.
La Grange is one of those athletes with the form to take a share of the spotlight away from Johnson, as is his conqueror in the 400m in the Test victory over Australia earlier this month, Hendrick Mokganyetsi, a man who continually produces performances to surprise the experts and did so again with his career- best of 44,94 seconds at Roodepoort.
He’s set to face opposition from national record holder Arnaud Malherbe and another man likely to be a member of the quartet which bids for a 4x400m relay medal in Sydney, Jopie van Oudtshoorn, as well as American Andre Morris.
“After the South African championships, I told myself that any race I ran, I’d go as fast as I could to improve my personal best,” said Mokganyetsi, who won the national title in Stellenbosch. He added that he hadn’t done much speed work yet this season, instead clocking up high mileage in an attempt to improve his strength for the first 300m. Not a great success at the major championships he’s attended so far, if Mokganyetsi could add more speed to the package he presents now, he could make his mark at the Sydney Olympics.
Many of the top names lined up for the series will only join the show in Pretoria, which is an IAAF Grand Prix II event, but some of the fields for Pietersburg are still exceptional, particularly in the men’s hammer throw, where national record holder Chris Harmse might struggle not to end up bottom of the pile.
The awesome Hungarian trio of Zsolt Nemeth, Tibor Gecsek and Adrian Annus have been engaged in training not that far away in Potchefstroom in the early part of this year, and a superb line-up also includes Russian Vasiliy Sidorenko and Australia’s Commonwealth Games champion, Stuart Rendell.
Discus ace Frantz Kruger must wait for Pretoria for world record holder Jurgen Schult to join the party, but will need little inspiration to continue from his season’s best of 65,05m in Roodepoort. “I’d really like to go further, just to put some pressure on the guys in Europe, because they’re only starting to throw at the end of May, beginning of June,” he said afterwards.