Beijing Games organisers will be hoping that the exciting crop of competitors in the blue-riband event of athletics can dispel the sordid spectre of doping and provide a feast of top-class sport.
Certainly, there is a raft of big-name drawcards and record-breakers for whom the stage is set to shine, despite worries about pollution levels at a time when temperatures and humidity are expected to be sweltering.
Defending men’s 100m champion Justin Gatlin will not be one of them, however, after failing in his bid to overturn a ban for testing positive in a drugs test.
Doping returned yet again this year to cast its ugly shadow over athletics, with five-time Olympic medallist Marion Jones jailed and stripped of her medals for lying to investigators about her use of performance-enhancing drugs.
In the same case, Dennis Mitchell, Antonio Pettigrew and Jerome Young, all former Olympic gold-medal relay runners on United States teams, each admitted doping on Jamaica-born coach Trevor Graham’s advice.
US Olympic leaders vowed to send no dope cheats to Beijing, with US Olympic Committee chairperson Peter Ueberroth saying extra measures beyond a greater number of doping tests had been taken to ensure a squad not using performance-enhancing drugs.
”We’ve seen the people who have suffered from cheating. We want to build a reputation of bringing clean teams to international competitions,” said Ueberroth.
On the track, American double world sprint champion Tyson Gay will be under pressure from the Jamaican duo of Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell.
Bolt surprised everyone by breaking the 100m world record set by his compatriot, the 21-year-old running 9,72 seconds in New York on May 31. But he has always said the 200m event would be his main focus at Beijing.
”I prefer the 200m, I have been dedicating my life to that event,” Bolt said. ”I would really like to win the gold medal.
”It will be up to my coach whether I double up or not. I have been with him for four years and he has made nothing but good decisions. I’m sure if he decided not to go for the 100m then it would be for a good reason.”
Another crowd-drawing race will be the men’s 110m hurdles. China will have defending Olympic champion Liu Xiang in the line-up, still smarting from losing his world record to Cuban rival Dayron Robles, who shaved one-hundredth off the previous record in clocking 12,87sec.
”When the world record is broken it is a concern for him [Liu],” Robles said, adding that he expected Liu to still be a force to be reckoned with in Beijing — not least because of the home crowd.
”I believe at least five guys can win in Beijing, but Liu is the favourite. He is the guy to beat,” he said.
The middle-distance running events look sure to be dominated by Ethiopians, notably Kenenisa Bekele and Tirunesh Dibaba, who go into the Games at the height of their form and at the top of their disciplines.
Bekele, the 2004 Olympic champion and triple world champion over 10 000m who also won a silver over 5 000m in the Athens Games and holds the world records in both events, snagged an unprecedented sixth world cross country title this season.
It remains unclear whether he will be going for the double, but one rival in the 10km race will be compatriot Haile Gebrselassie.
The former four-time world champion and double Olympic champion over 10 000m, who is the world record holder in the marathon but suffers asthma, has shunned the longer distance event over fears about the pollution and heat.
”In Beijing, no marathon,” he said. ”I don’t compete in the marathon in these conditions.
”Imagine in summer, with temperatures around 32 to 33 degrees plus the humidity. It is better not to take the risk. It is better not to compete.”
Competing at Hengelo in May, Gebrselassie recorded a time of 26:51,20, the second fastest of the year over 10 000m.
Echoing Gebrselassie’s fears over pollution, Australian track and field athletes will skip the Games’ opening ceremony.
Beijing’s air quality is routinely rated among the worst in the world by international agencies, such as the United Nations, and the authorities have banned more than one million cars from the streets during the Olympics. — Sapa-AFP