Summer Olympics 2000 Record crowd watches track opener

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Friday, September 22
Record crowd watches track opener
Associated Press

SYDNEY, Australia -- As Olympic opening sessions go, Friday's spectacle was a smash.

A capacity crowd of 97,437 filled the shiny silver, blue and red Olympic Stadium, basking in bright sunshine and roaring loudly to all the competition, even though they were only preliminaries.

Michael Johnson, who ought to know, loved the environment as he coasted through the first round of the 400 meters.

"It was a great atmosphere," Johnson said. "The weather, you can't beat it. A full stadium this early in the morning. I'm impressed."

Bailey battles through opener, but then eliminated
Donovan Bailey wasn't talking after his struggle to qualify in the first round of the 100 meters in Friday's opening session of Olympic track and field. But there is no doubt he was hurting.


	Canada's Donovan Bailey has been battling the flu leading up to his first-round heat.

It became more evident in his second-round heat, when he ran out of steam and was eliminated.

The defending Olympic champion and former world record holder almost pulled out of the competition with the flu, but decided to tough it out.

He had a false start, then was obviously far off his form. Still, he qualified third in his heat in 10.39 seconds to advance to the evening second round, if he can make it.

It had been a rough year for Bailey even before he became ill. Last fall, he ruptured his left Achilles' tendon, an injury that threatened his career.

After his race, the normally talkative Canadian waved to reporters in the mixed zone beneath Olympic Stadium, then made it to a seat far to the end of the area reserved for athletes to put on their warmups.

He sat for what seemed an interminable time, his elbows on his knees, his head bowed. It took him a good 15 minutes to change clothes.

As he walked away, a reporter shouted and asked how he felt. Bailey just shook his head from side to side.

Close shave
Canadian sprinter Bruny Surin advanced to the second round of the men's 100 meters by five-thousandths of a second.

Surin ran in five world championship finals and one Olympic final in the 1990s, but he had not run since the Canadian championships Aug. 12 and has been bothered by a sore hamstring. He sputtered to a fourth place finish in his heat in a lackluster 10.41 seconds.

The top three finishers in each heat moved on to the second round, with the next seven fastest runners also advancing.

Surin and Martin Lachkovics of Austria tied for the final berth into the second round, so the electronic timing was carried out to the thousandth of a second to determine who moved on.

Surin's time was 10.404 seconds, compared with 10.409 for Lachkovics. The wind may have been the difference.

Surin had a breeze of 0.4 meters per second at his back. Lachkovics ran into a headwind of 0.6 meters per second.

Surin, who ran in five world championship finals and one Olympic final in the 1990s, made the second round by the slimmest of margins.

Slowest wins
This must have been the first time Maurice Greene was a winner by being the slowest.

Greene, the world record holder, had a strange wager with friends Ato Boldon and Jon Drummond in Friday's first round of the 100 meters.

The friendly bet was over "who could win their heat in the slowest time," Boldon said.

Boldon failed miserably. He had the fastest time of anyone -- 10.04 seconds. Drummond was the day's fourth fastest at 10.15. Of the three, Greene was the slowest at 10.31 seconds, even though he won his heat easily.

"I'm down one," Boldon said.

Champion out
The 1999 world champion in the women's 800 meters, Ludmila Formanova of the Czech Republic, was the first track and field casualty on Friday.

She pulled up with a half-lap to go when she aggravated an ankle injury.

"I have had a longtime problem with my foot," Formanova said. "Two days ago I had a big pain in my left ankle. The flight to Sydney was not good -- I had a lot of swelling."

The 26-year-old runner likely will end her career without an Olympic medal.

"I wanted to break the physical pain barrier because the whole season I have been preparing for the Olympics," Formanova said. "Running faster makes the pain worse. But that's just only sport and that's how it goes.

"Some operation may be necessary to fix the problem. I doubt I will compete at another Olympics."

ALSO SEE
Track and field results

Johnson, Greene open strong in first-round heats