July 27, 1996
World will stop for 10 seconds
By STEVE SIMMONS -- Toronto Sun
ATLANTA -- Beneath the stands of the Olympic Stadium, in the place where the runners exit the track, Donovan Bailey was untying his shoes when a woman carrying a television camera screamed a question at him.
"Can you say something to the people in Bolivia?'' she shouted.
Bailey smiled and waved to the camera. "Hi Bolivia,'' he said. "Got to go now.''
A few steps away, a sprinter named Bimal Tarafdar from Bangladesh was asking other sprinters for autographs and posing for pictures. "It's great to be surrounded by runners with records and such handsome reputations,'' said Tarafdar, who didn't qualify for the second round.
And when Tarafdar approached defending Olympic champion Linford Christie for an autograph, Christie blew by, just as he would on the track.
Everywhere you looked, there was another sprinter, another story, another question to ask.
This is the scene on the night before the night. Frantic and frenetic, charged and emotional. This is the scene beneath the stadium, the histrionics before the greatest of Olympic events. This is the heavyweight buildup for the 100 metres, and it is all about talking and mocking, conversation and interpretation.
And there is nothing in sport that compares to it any more.
The buildup to a boxing heavyweight title bout used to have the kind of allure that tonight's 100-metre race does. But that was before the world championship was sliced into pieces and fighters stopped stepping into the ring with their equals.
There always has been a certain pattern to the week of a big fight. The sparring. The talk. The weigh-in. The buzz. And all the conversation and prognostication that surrounds it.
FOUR HAVE SHOT
It is no different with tonight's 100 metres. Only it is better. And it is real.
Legitimately, there are four runners who could win the most prestigious of Olympic events, and the title that goes with it as the world's fastest man.
No room for errors. No place for mistakes. This is too deep a field. There is too much at stake.
Canada's Bailey raced twice yesterday to advance to tonight's semi-final. He didn't look sharp in either heat, running once in 10.24 seconds and later in 10.05.
The two runs looked somewhat the same. He started awkwardly, showed his speed in the middle metres of the race, then shut it down at the end.
The voices among the track watchers expressed concern about his style. And somewhere you can hear Burgess Meredith's voice saying, "I saw something in the gym I didn't like.''
Will any of it matter in the real fight tonight? Will it be relevant? Or was it all just posturing?
Those answers will come in the final tonight. On world-wide television. Nine o'clock eastern time.
They will come from Bailey, from Frankie Fredericks, from Ato Boldon, from Dennis Mitchell.
And who will be first among equals?
Fredericks ran an easy 10.32 in his opening heat, but at night cruised to a 9.93 in his second race. In both heats, he looked calm, ready and clearly able to go faster.
And what will it take to win tonight?
MITCHELL `FOCUSED'
"A 9.8, maybe a 9.7,'' said Boldon, the New Yorker who runs for Trinidad and Tobago when he isn't running for UCLA.
When asked who should be favored to win, he said, "Me and the other two.'' When asked who the other two were, Boldon gave no answer.
Mitchell knows he is one of them. The American champion and bronze medallist from Barcelona says he is ready, and he stomped around the track and in the corridor just to let everybody know.
"I'm not angry,'' he said, "I'm just focused.''
Mitchell was loud, Fredericks was silent, Bailey had his perpetual grin on his face and Boldon stuck out his chest, proud to be included among the world's best.
Each runs differently, their faces contorting as their arms and legs swing. And each carries himself differently, coming from a different space and a different place.
Before he left the area beneath the stands, Bailey turned back toward his inquisitors and smiled one more time.
"Don't worry,'' he said. "I'll put it all together. I'm ready, guys.''
And so is the world.
