|
|
Thursday, September 21
Chance for three 400 golds in a row gone
Associated Press
SYDNEY, Australia -- Marie-Jose Perec, a three-time Olympic
champion so reclusive and mysterious she's been dubbed the "Greta
Garbo of athletics," withdrew from the Sydney Games and a chance
at history.
She could run, but she couldn't hide.
|  | | Marie-Jose Perec of France arrives at the Singapore airport. It's not known whether she'll return to Sydney. |
Perec, two-time defending champion in the 400 meters and a rival
of favorite Cathy Freeman in the 400, flew to Singapore after
claiming that a man forced his way into her room and threatened
her. She left one day before the first-round heats in her
event.
After holding out hope all day that Perec somehow would return
to the Olympics, the French team announced Thursday that she had
withdrawn from the games.
"The French delegation regrets that an athlete who has brought
so much to Olympism in general, and to French sports in particular,
is not participating in the Sydney Games," said a statement
released by the French Olympic delegation.
The statement also said Perec's departure had nothing to do with
drug tests and that she had not been subjected to an
out-of-competition drug test before the games.
In Singapore, Perec and her companion were questioned by police
following a scuffle with a television cameraman awaiting their
arrival.
Perec's companion, former American 400-meter runner Anthuan
Maybank, got into an altercation at Singapore's airport that sent
TV cameraman Kyme Hallion -- a free-lancer working for Sydney's
Channel Nine -- to a hospital to check for head injuries.
"He came at me like a raging bull," Hallion told The
Associated Press in an interview from his Singapore office.
Channel Nine showed the incident on its evening newscast. A
man's voice is heard amid scuffling sounds, saying: "Listen to me.
If you come near me again, I will hurt you. Give me the tape."
Singapore police spokesman Phillip Mah said Perec and Maybank
were questioned by police "to assist investigations into a case of
voluntarily causing hurt." No arrests were made and police said
Perec and Maybank were free to leave.
Denise Kaigler, spokeswoman for Perec's chief sponsor, Reebok,
said Perec left Australia after being accosted in Sydney at her
hotel.
"Marie-Jose has been under a great deal of pressure and
yesterday afternoon she was harassed in her hotel room by an
unidentified man who forced his way into her room and threatened
her," Kaigler said.
Police and a hotel official said they had no knowledge of such
an incident.
In 1996, Perec became the second woman to sweep the 200 and 400
gold medals in an Olympics. The 32-year-old Perec had hoped to win
an unprecedented third consecutive 400-meter gold in the Sydney Games.
She had been a mystery woman in Sydney, where she refused to
train with the French team and hid from reporters. Her only public
appearance was her arrival at the Sydney Airport, where she
sprinted past cameramen.
The media pressure intensified the more she withdrew.
French team leader Michel Vial said nobody in the French
delegation had spoken to Perec in three or four days.
"It's a shame that she was not able to become part of the
delegation at our training camp or at the Olympic village," he
said. "Maybe she made a bad decision by not staying in the
village, where she would have been more secure."
Perec's escape became the talk of the Olympics. Even
International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch
was asked about her whereabouts.
"I don't know where she is," Samaranch said with a smile.
"She's not in my office."
Freeman has not lost at 400 meters in more than three years but
has lost seven of her nine career races against Perec. She was not
talking to reporters Thursday. But Australian track and field coach
Chris Wardlaw said Perec probably wasn't ready to run.
"I think if she's not here she obviously wasn't in shape, so it
wouldn't have been a great race anyway," Wardlaw said. "She's the
athlete of the decade in the '90s, a truly great athlete, and
obviously in her mind she wasn't going to be able to compete up to
that level."
Perec, nicknamed "The Gazelle" because of her fluid,
long-legged running style, won the 1996 Atlanta Games gold in 48.25
seconds -- an Olympic record. But she has not won a 400-meter race
since then.
Perec has been tormented by Epstein Barr syndrome, a rare virus
that causes chronic fatigue, and dropped out of three races this
summer in Europe that would have pitted her against Freeman.
Perec's only public comments have come on her Web site. On
Tuesday, she wrote that her training was going well, but that she
was scared.
"The games have hardly begun and already I wish they would end
because I'm so scared," she wrote. "I simply have to make sure my
training place stays secret. That's the main thing, is to stay
relaxed."
|  | |
ALSO SEE
Aussie papers say Perec 'running scared' of Freeman
|
