Who will win the showdown?

Published on Sunday 21 July 2002 01:00

IN a competitive world, it doesn’t matter how fast you run, there’s always somebody chasing. In Manchester, Dwain Chambers will be happy with that scenario, provided he is not the one stuck in the slipstream.

After years of watching the backs of men like Maurice Greene, Ato Bolden, Frankie Fredericks and Linford Christie, the 24-year-old Londoner goes into a major games as favourite for gold in the 100m.

None of those four, ruled out by nationality, injury or the passing of the years, will line up against Chambers in Manchester. Yet, even if they were, Chambers is in such startling mental and physical form that he would still be the man to beat.

Back-to-back scalpings of Greene in Oslo and Sheffield this summer sent shockwaves through the athletics world and proved that the lad who promised so much when he finished third in the 1999 World Championships in Seville, but failed to deliver anything better than fourth in Sydney at the 2000 Olympics and a very disappointing fifth a year later at Edmonton, may be about to fulfil his potential.

Bolstered by victory in the Goodwill Games at the end of last season and a stint with US-based Ukrainian coach Remi Korchemny, he emerged from his winter cocoon as an athlete who not only runs a good race but talks one, too. Gone are the doubts, replaced by a more in-yer-face psychology.

Chambers is more focused now, claims Welsh sprinter Christian Malcolm. "It hurt him to come back from the last two championships without a medal, and he’s hungrier, more determined."

Long-time coach Mike McFarlane agrees. "People should be excited by Dwain because he will deliver. He has stepped up a notch. He knows what he has to do to compete with the best. I don’t know if the world order has changed, but everyone knows they will have to be at their best to win races against Dwain now."

Always possessed of raw talent and dedication, the difference now is that Chambers finally believes in himself. Even before he stepped on track to face Greene for the first time this year, he was making bold prophecies: "I’m fitter, stronger and mentally a lot better than ever. And I could be on top of the world by the end of this year. It’s a bit daunting to think about becoming the best in the world, but I do."

The world may have to wait until a slightly later date, but there is no doubting he has Europe and the Commonwealth within his grasp. Captain of the British men’s European Cup team, he will compete in Munich in August, and by then he hopes he will have the Commonwealth gold tucked into his hand luggage.

If he fails in Manchester, the consoling factor for the home fans is that the top medal is still likely to be in English hands. Bolden, although two years past his best, had been the only realistic non-English hope before his late withdrawal through injury.

Birmingham’s 19-year-old Mark Lewis-Francis is an athlete on the fast-track to success, and the battle between the two at the City of Manchester Stadium is already being billed as the rebirth of British athletics. When Chambers hit the wind-assisted 9.95seconds mark to beat Greene at Sheffield, Lewis-Francis was just behind in 9.97secs. His legal pb may still be 10.07, but he knows that if he goes in all guns blazing, he could snatch the gold from under Chambers’ nose. And he is a big-time performer.

Pinpointed as a future Olympic champion by Donovan Bailey (and, most tellingly, by himself), the Brummie bright-spark is a bundle of muscle and power. If Chambers is only now finally sorting out his thoughts and switching nagging doubts for bragging resolve, then he’s a got a bit of chasing to do.

Track and field were always of interest to a boy uninspired by school and well aware that he could dig in and make a living running down a 100m strip or have an existence that involved running from the police. "When I was younger, athletics was the one thing that really clicked with me. I started competing properly when I was 13 and enjoyed travelling up and down the country for events. You know you’re quick, so you want to show everybody."

With such a mindset it must have been tempting to take up the offer to travel to Sydney two years ago to compete in the Olympics instead of turning out at the World Junior Championships in Chile, but Lewis-Francis has a gameplan, and that didn’t fit into it. He believed he has the talent to take him to umpteen future Olympics, and has never rued the decision.

"Sprinting is about being comfortable in your own mind. At the beginning of the season I sit down with my coach and we work out the priorities. This year it’s the Commonwealths.

"It’s building nicely. The ulti-mate target is Athens in 2004."

Lewis-Francis won’t proclaim his belief that he will win Olympic gold in Athens, but such is his strength of mind and self-belief that there is little doubt that’s what he’s thinking.

That mental strength will stand him in good stead. It’s a far cry from Chambers’ reaction. He admits he was so intimidated by names such as like Christie and Greene that he found it tough to focus when the legends next to him glared or tried to psyche him out.

"There were times I was close to giving Greene a slap," says the top Briton, "and he’d have deserved it. But now I’ve learned to control my emotions as well as my power and to use them in the race. Greene doesn’t try that with me now."

Should anyone try it with Lewis-Francis, the chances are they would regret it. Like blood coursing through a dialysis machine, any negativity is quickly processed and turned into something positive. His self-confessed aim at the start of each and every race is brutally honest.

"I want to be the No.1. I want to smash them all, to kill them on the track. Dwain [Chambers], Jason [Gardener], Christian [Malcolm], the Americans. On the track, enemy’s the word. An American guy once said to me that the track is our battlefield: ‘Once you step off it you can be mates with who you like, but on it you are enemies.’ That’s true."

You can be sure there will be no love lost between Chambers and the youngster on the start line at Manchester. Both want the title badly, and both are capable of getting it.

"In Dwain and Mark we have two guys who can be the real deal for the next five or six years," says McFarlane. That seems to be in little doubt. The only question remaining is: just who will be chasing who?

• Did you know?

Allan Wells is Scotland’s most successful Commonwealth Games track athlete. In two Games, 1978 and 1982, he won a total of four gold, one silver and one bronze medals. He won his two Edmonton golds in the 200m and the 4x100m and retained the 200m title in Brisbane, adding the blue riband 100m as well.