8702110365
DETROIT FREE PRESS
870831
Monday, August 31, 1987
METRO FINAL
1F
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1987, Detroit Free Press
JOHNSON'S LIGHTNING START SETS UP ELECTRIFYING RECORD
ROME -- "ON YOUR MARKS! . . . "
Carl Lewis crouched low in the starting blocks, head down. Ben Johnson
crouched next to him, a mirror image.
"SET! . . . "
Their backs arched. Lewis still looked down, awaiting the gun, as did six
other sprinters. Only Johnson raised his head and looked toward the finish, as
if destiny was cooing his name . . .
This would be the start of something big. For days, this city had buzzed
about the "the confrontation" of this World Championship 100 meters, the two
fastest men on the planet -- Lewis, 26, the big name, the Olympic king, the
defending world champ, versus Johnson, 25, the shy Canadian, who grew up
running barefoot in his native Jamaica, and who had beaten Lewis several
times, but never in a competition this big.
The stadium was packed. Every head was turned. Even the vendors and the
teenage volunteers came out from the corridors and lined the steps. Here is
what they saw: Seven sprinters, heads down. One sprinter, head up.
"POW!"
Fluid and straight ahead
Johnson exploded out of the blocks as if cannon-shot -- "It was either the
best reaction time of his life, or the slowest jump I've ever seen," Lewis
would later remark -- but it was ruled clean, no false start, and after the
first 20 meters it was evident that this whole race was Johnson and Lewis, and
likely in that order. Their bodies grooved quickly into their individual
styles: Lewis fluid, straight ahead, no wasted motion; Johnson an earthquake
of power, feet slamming the track, arms muscle-tight and churning madly. Is he
for real? He looks like he'll blow up before the tape!
He passed 40 meters easily ahead. Fifty. Sixty. Johnson is the better
starter anyhow, while Lewis is famous for motoring past people as they slow
towards the finish. But Johnson wasn't slowing this time, no way, no how, and
the crowd began calling his name, first quietly, then quickly, and with each
stride: "JOHN-SON!" Seventy. "JOHN-SON!" Eighty. "JOHN-SON!" Ninety. No coming
back from this. Lewis pressed the final 10 meters, but it didn't help, it
wasn't close. . . .
"JOHN-SONNNNN!"
Victory! He eased up, and the whole stadium, perhaps the whole world,
did a double-take as the scoreboard clock flashed unbelievable digits: 9.83 --
a world record by a tenth of a second!
No wind. No altitude. No asterisks. A world record! A tenth of a second? It
had taken 15 years for the record to drop two- hundredths of a second! Wow!
The stadium exploded, and so did Lewis, chasing Johnson halfway around the
track in an effort to congratulate him. "He deserves a handshake," Lewis
would say. But the winner, who has taken his fill of Carl Lewis questions and
comparisons the last two years, barely acknowledged him. "I didn't see him
coming," Johnson would say later. There was more to it than that. This was
Johnson's moment. And he wanted it that way.
Lewis slinked back to the tunnel. In the wild applause for the new hero, no
one yet realized, not even Lewis himself, that in finishing second, he had
run the best time of his life, a 9.93, which would have given him a world
record had Johnson not been there.
World's fastest human
"MEEESTER JOHN-STON!" the Italian reporters screamed in the sticky-hot
press room afterward. "MEESTER WORLD RAY-CORD!"
Johnson, a 5-10, 180-pound muscle ball, answered their questions briefly,
sedately. Whereas Lewis is the ultimate media creature (he habitually fixes
his hair before any TV interview), Johnson would rather be anywhere else. He
speaks with a stutter he has had since youth, so talking is not his forte. He
shied away from waving a flag after his win. On the victory stand, he wore
only dark green sweats. "I don't have any Canadian singlets," he explained.
And yet, what he had done! Shattered a mark that earned him the title
"World's Fastest Human." Shattered? Is that the right word? There are ruins
in this city with less damage. You don't take a tenth of a second off the 100
meter record. Not in one swoop. Do you?
He did. "And I think I can improve it next year," he said. "It can be
done."
Amazing. Even Lewis had to concede that. And yet, in some way, this was a
shining moment for Lewis, too. He showed grace in defeat -- the first really
big one he has suffered in a while -- and it may well have won him more fans
than any of his victories. "We are not friends," he admitted of his
relationship with rival Johnson, "but we are competitors. I respect him."
A new world record. A would-have-been world record. When they analyze this
race, they will see that the difference was at the gun, Johnson's thunderclap
of anticipation. What was he thinking when he stared down that track?
Velocity? Destiny? Perhaps only that this would be the start of something big.
Oh man, was it ever.
COLUMN;REACTION;TRACK;RACING;BEN JOHNSON;CARL LEWIS;RUNNING;
RECORD