The perfect sprint

ALL THE SCIENCE, COACHING AND TRAINING IT TAKES TO GUN FOR THE GOLD

hen it comes to the summer Olympics, no event commands our attention like the oldest sport in the world—the flat-out sprint, a competition of pure foot speed. The winners of the 100-, 200- and 400-meter races will be hailed as the fastest humans alive. Their performances will last mere seconds, yet these bursts of speed are built on years upon years of preparation.

Beginning in late 2006 I was privileged to observe several of the world's greatest sprinters to examine their phi­losophy, training and motivation. I studied the solitary strategy employed by Jeremy Wariner, along with the team

philosophy espoused by coach John Smith, his champion Maurice Greene, who was attempting a comeback, and Smith's best hope for gold in the 100 meters in Beijing, Torri Edwards. I sought out and met the legendary gold medalist Michael Johnson. I enlisted biomechanics experts to help unravel the mysterious code of speed. My search took me to Los Angeles, to Waco, Texas and to Kansas City, Kansas, where I stood before the church where Maurice Greene first raced, in his Sunday best. Along the way I came to understand the science and nature of what is behind those few explosive seconds you see on TV—the rigorous training and coaching it takes to run for the gold.

all 2006. Fog has given way to hazy sunshine this first day of November, open­ing practice in a new season for one of the greatest pools of genetically blessed athletes on the planet. The setting is the tattered West Los Angeles College track. By chance, the football field is crowded with more than 100 men in prison-gray shirts, trying out for the Arena Football League team the Los Angeles Avengers. But no one would confuse these foot­ball players with the elegant creatures winding their way around the track. They walk the turn—a dozen men, a handful of women—and then take flight.

Hair flecked with gray, John Smith is a commanding coach. The tall, trim 56-year-old moves with the pride of a man whose world record in the 440-yard dash is now in its 37th year. Though there is warmth in the lean contours of his brown face, his eyes can burn. Impeccably attired in fashionable ath­letic wear. Smith takes a seat on a ledge by the track under the shade of some pines, ministering to his fresh-faced sprint disciples. He gestures to the entrance. "When you walk through there, this is your utopia. You are able to create whatever you want," he says. He presses closer. "Your smallest focus is your greatest freedom. Everything we'll talk about has nothing to do with anything but life. It is all the same."

It's hard not to gawk. Sheathed in thick sweats stands the rock-hard Maurice Greene, the 2000 Olympic gold medalist and 2004 silver medalist, a man who once lowered the world record in the 100 meters by the biggest margin since the advent of electronic timing: one half of one tenth of a second, to 9.79. His head rolls playfully with his hips as he jokes with a teammate, a diamond stud flashing in his ear. His sculpted face is punctuated by hooded eyes and high cheekbones, and he moves with the sleepy, muscular sway of a lion. Tattooed on his bulging biceps is the acronym GOAT—Greatest of All Time. Already considered among the top two or three best sprinters in history, he is search­ing for one more Olympic triumph. For four years straight. Greene was ranked number one in the world in the 100 meters. But he is 32. They say he is fin­ished. He promises he will prove the naysayers wrong at the Olympics.

This morning I get the chance to wit­ness a rare thing in sports. Smith's troupe is an ongoing experiment, a clas­sic team approach to this most individ-

ual of sports. Smith is the coach and spiritual center of HSInternational, nicknamed Handling Speed Intelli­gently, a soup-to-nuts southern California-based sports-management firm founded by Smith and the agent Emanuel Hudson. HSI trains and repre­sents nearly two dozen elite profes­sional sprinters and hurdlers (plus a handful of football and tennis players). Smith's athletes have won at least 13 gold, 10 silver and 10 bronze Olympic medals and 14 world championships. Of the roughly 350 sub-10 second 100-meter performances in history, Smith has coached more than 100 of them.

(Greene alone has broken the vaunted barrier more than 50 times.)

"Come on, everybody!" Smith hollers, the hard work about to begin. The runners huddle, heads bent, palms piling on top of one another. It is an eclectic mix. Here comes Leonard Scott, the barrel-chested former college football standout, a man with a stone jaw and a look of quiet determination who recently clocked a swift 9.91 in the 100. The gracefully shy, eaglelike Torri Edwards stands just five-foot-four, an elegant woman with a 100-meter world-champion title on her resume. Hollywood-cool Willie Gault, the blazingly fast former Chicago Bear and sprint star, serves as a friend and mentor to these athletes. At 46, Gault can still keep pace with them in practice.

The sprinters release their hands and

break the huddle, every one of them some shade of brown. Smith and virtu­ally every other sprint coach believe the fastest humans originate in west Africa. Studies have shown they have a far higher percentage of the muscle fibers necessary to sprint exceptionally fast. Just as the world's greatest long­distance runners (East Africans) are blessed with a high percentage of slow-twitch fibers, elite sprinters seem to have a far greater percentage of fast-twitch fibers. Fast-twitch muscle con­tracts faster and more forcefully. It's a gift of nature. "All right, let's go to work," growls

Smith, describing his intensive skipping and high-knee drills, nearly 20 runs of 20 meters each. These movements serve as the foundation for world-class performances. If a sprinter is dedi­cated, in a few years he or she may begin to master them and unlock the secrets of speed. You can't rush this journey. Perhaps more than any other element in the Smith method, these exercises are the indispensable first stage if you want to be fast. Along with the essential body position and move­ment, the drills teach the art of shifting smoothly, or as Smith puts it, anticipat­ing the "perfect clutch moment."

After the drills, the sprinters will run nine 100-meter turnarounds: striding for 100 meters, turning around and strid­ing again. (continued on page 115)

PERFECT SPRINT

(fonlinued from page 94) 'That's the warm-up." Smith says with a ;old smile, alluding to the five quick 200-meter runs that will follow—the actual Aorkout. "God bless you."

They toe the line, eight lanes, two deep. Greene commands the center lane, and A-ith an imperial glance from side to side he akes the first group out. The drill is called he A skip, a powerful skip with a high-knee iction in which the center of the foot strikes he track with force. Greene's calves reach >ut for the track and then hammer down. I'he runners march in military precision, 16 feet striking the drum of the track.

The Greene movement does not come .¦asily. Smith pounces on Leroy Dixon. he wide-eyed 23-year-old all-American rresh from the University of South Garo-ina. Dixon has amazing bounce, but he's ike a Slinky—all over the place. "You hink you're getting it by reaching out or it," says Smith. "You're not. You're lot taking advantage ot this movement. Fhe kev is the dorsiflexed foot." Smith 3ulls Dixon aside and shows him how to lex his foot, toes pulled toward the shin. Smith brings his foot down hard under iim like a prancing horse's, then back ip underneath his buttocks. "You hit the ground like a springboard," he says.

The flexed foot maximizes force and rreates a wheel-like forward locomotion. Fhese are not strides so much as revolu-ions. The secret. Smith says, is the move-nent. the feet cycling in a circle.

"Arms back, Leroy!" barks Smith. "Feel >our movement. ' The young sprinter glances at his coach, and Smith burrows n. "Pay attention to what you're doing. Put iour chin down!"

The drills continue, and suddenly Smith shakes his head angrily. A couple of sprinters lave eased up a stride short. He points to he red cones marking 20 meters.

"See this cone right here"' It's where you stop. You don't stop here," he says, point-ng a couple of feet short. Smith knows of >ne athlete who liked to stop his drills one stride short. "He wound up being number our all the time," he explains. "Nobody's fault but his."

If there's one American sprinter likely to ake gold in Beijing, it's ]eremy Wariner. \ Baylor University track prodigy, the 24-iear-old runs the 400 meters and won the gold in Athens in 2004. For all the attention He'll receive in the weeks leading up to the Olympics, the training regimen of a long sprinter is often a lonely exercise.

On a cloudy morning in Waco, Texas, Wariner's silver-haired coach, Glyde Hart, Leases his new Gadillac through the main gate into a cemetery with Wariner in the Front seat. A cemetery—not your ordinary place to train. The road is narrow, and Hart winds through the tombstones and oaks, the leaves gold and red, pulling to a stop when :he road straightens. Wariner, the reign­ing Olympic champion in the 400 meters, 'limbs out, tall and all legs. He wears blue sweats and a yellow Adidas shirt.

After a few gentle stretches Wariner leans into the car to help his coach check the odometer. An easy workout on this early-season day: four five- to six-minute runs at a comfortable pace with two minutes' rest in between. Wariner slips off his sweats, his legs long, lean and sinewy. Head shaven, face angular, he is built to sprint longer than any other man. He clicks his watch and takes off through the cemetery as we roll behind in the car.

Wariner ruled the 400 meters the past few seasons, running it in the mid-to-high-43-second range, earning several million in endorsements and prize money. He's knocking on Michael Johnson's record of 43.18 seconds, and track weenies drool on the Internet that he could be the first white man to crack 10 seconds in the 100 (he's the first white American man to win an Olympic medal in the sprints since Michael Larrabee won the 400 in 1964).

Wariner's first run is leisurely, and 1 join him on his second trot. He starts bounding down the road. Inches away, I can feel his float, the uncanny way he seems to fall into each stride. The first 200 meters or so I hang by his side, needing three strides for his two; then he dances ahead and disap­pears among the tombstones.

Hart's Cadillac provides my locomotion for the next interval, and the coach takes me through his charge's solitary regimen. Nothing fancy. Hart is old enough to have seen and rejected just about every wacky new idea and gadget that is supposed to make you fast. "They used to pull people behind cars. Now they have them put on parachutes," says the coach, shaking his head. "It's busywork. You gotta run."

Simple strength. Hart believes, has helped Wariner hold his speed longer in his races. Once a week in the fall Wariner runs 1,000 meters on grass twice, with sev­eral minutes' rest in between. Each week he clips 50 meters off, cutting it to 950, 900, etc. Another day he'll train almost like a miler, focusing on aerobic condi­tioning and running 16 200-meter runs in 36 seconds with two minutes' rest in between. But Wariner doesn't want to be a miler, so each week he runs one fewer 200 but ends a second faster—15 runs in 35 seconds, then 14 in 34. "It's kind of like Pavlov's dog," Hart says. "He's going to run one less, but he's going to run faster. When the mind knows it has one less, it will do that."

By summer Wariner sprints five 200s in 25 seconds. Another day he pops a few 350-meter intervals. "Go 40 seconds at a hard run, and the by-product will be lac-tate—that's what makes the butt and legs heavy." Hart explains. "That's the essence of training. As the body learns to buffer this lactate. that's conditioning."

Wariner takes off on his last morning run, a cooldown, and 1 join him. Hart let Wariner run a few national 200-meter races last year, and when I ask what he likes about the shorter race, he brightens. "It shows the speed a lot of people think I don't have. I know I can go under 20 flat," he says confidently. "The more I run it. the faster my time will be. And the good thing is it will get my 400 time down."

Wariner chats as if he were silling al a Texas diner, ordering pie. My breathing grows heavy, and my questions come in labored chunks: "Track guys on the Inter­net...are saying...Jeremy...maybe could break 10 seconds...in the 100 meters."

He looks me in the eye, his voice light and excited. "It might be possible," he says. "I've never run a 100 before."

"What did you do in the 200 last year?"

"20.19," he says proudly.

I nod, impressed.

"So I know I can run a good 200."

Wariner is on the cusp of being fast enough to seriously contest international 200-meter races, something few white men have ever done. "Maybe one day Coach will let me run the 100, just to get a time in," Wariner says, clearly excited at the pros­pect. "It could be a small meet."

We round a large tombstone, my breath coming in gulps. "What's the hardest part of the 400 for you?'"

"Just staying mentally prepared for it. Just knowing I've got people on my back the whole time."

A couple of more deep breaths and I ask the question anyone who has ever tried to sprint a lap would ask: "When you hit that wall in the 400, where do you feel it-1"

Jeremy Wariner is not even breathing hard. "Honestly," he says, "I don't feel it anymore."

Wariner hopes to break the record in the 400—43.18 seconds—which is owned by his friend and agent Michael |ohnson. For nearly a decade |ohnson dominated the 200 and 400, winning his first gold medal in a world championship in 1991 and his last in the 2000 Olympics. When we meet near his home in Marin County, California. Johnson doesn't hesitate when asked who his favorite sprinter is.

"Jesse Owens.' he says. "He was a very efficient runner. He had incredible turn­over, a great center of gravity. He was on top of his body." On the eve of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics Owens's widow told Johnson in a letter that his straight-up running style recalled her late husband's. But analysts at the time thought different. "When 1 first came up." Johnson recalls, "the television commentators would say, 'He has great talent. As soon as he starts to run the traditional way. he'll break a world record '"

Johnson had been told he ran "funny" since he was a boy and started dusting kids in Dallas. College recruiters told him they'd have to work on his technique. Johnson instead went with Clyde Hart, who didn't see much to change. But he understands why so many questioned his style. The |esse Owens mode—the upright, rigid sprinter—had faded from the popular lexicon. "They did studies, though, and it turned out to be more effi­cient," Johnson says. Quicker strides were the answer. It is a conclusion seconded by Ralph Mann, a renowned biomechan-ics expert who uses films of Johnson to demonstrate superior long-sprint tech­nique for USA Track & Field, the sport's governing body in America. Johnson, like

Owens, proved small gears turning fast can get you there quicker than big slow gears. "It's the down force," Johnson says. "The harder you hit, the harder your foot comes down, the faster and quicker you're propelled forward."

The litmus test of Johnson's desire, mechanics and training was the 1996 Atlanta Games. No man had ever won the 200- and 400-meter races in the same Olympics. "I tried to point out all the pitfalls," says Hart. Johnson would need to run eight races in seven days. "I told him. 'You've never gotten an indi­vidual gold in the Olympics. You're the best 400 runner in the world. It's less chancy than the 200.'"

Johnson convinced his coach it was worth the risk. Pietro Mennea's world record of 19.72 in the 200 meters—set at high altitude—had stood unchallenged for almost 17 years, much like Bob Beamon's miraculous near-30-foot long jump. The stage was set before the Games, when Johnson won the U.S. Olympic trial in 19.66 seconds, breaking Mennea's mark. For the Atlanta Olympics, Nike designed extra-light spikes for Johnson, the soles fashioned of carbon fiber, the feathery body woven with golden thread. He won the 400 by nearly a second. Three nights later he lined up for the 200 final.

"I got a belter start than normal, and then 1 stumbled a bit," Johnson recalls. "When you get a good start, gravity pulls

you down. You've got to pump your arms to keep your balance." He didn't panic. "If you start to make too many changes, you're out of the race," he says. The first half of the 200 is a curve, cen­trifugal forces chewing up hundredths of a second. But Johnson came through the 100 in 10.12. His quick shorter strides helped. "I jusl was good at curves, always have been," he says. He made a smooth transition into the straightaway, not pressing too hard.

The dreamy euphoria long-distance runners speak of? "People always want to know what it's like," Johnson shrugs. "In the sprints, you don't have time to enjoy the scenery. You're executing a strategy." He felt the phases of the race like a For­mula 1 driver shifting through the turns. "Everything is clicking. It all feels effort­less." He watched the clock as he neared the last 20 meters. "It was going to 17 seconds, then 18. I could see the tenths." With 10 meters left Johnson fell his ham­string starting to go. A jolt, and then his leg wobbled. But he kept moving. "It's the Olympics. If I pull it. I pull it."

The crowd erupted. The time a stun­ning 19.32. Johnson had his historic double, cracking his own world record by a whopping third of a second. More amazing still, with a rolling start Johnson clocked 9.20 in his second 100 meters (faster than the world-record 100 meters). Until that day the 100-meter champion

had always been considered the all-out fastest. But Johnson's last 100 of his record 200 meters was run at an average of 24.3 mph, or more than 35 and a half feet a second. The pundits started calling him the World's Fastest Man.

Coach Smith weaves commitment into the discipline of speed. The Smith sprinters are also quintessentially L.A.. donning sleek shirts, jewelry and fashionable sweats, toting a boom box for some post-workout hip-hop. They're generally photo shoot-ready. The squad used to practice at UCLA's fabled track (Smith was a top UCLA coach for 1" years) but had to move because too many fans were show­ing up and interfering. Not that Smith's athletes don't enjoy the attention and the spice of controversy. They've been blasted for their flamboyance and for seeming to embrace their teammates more than they do the U.S. national team.

The coach's genius is to approach the 100 as a long race. He breaks it into seven phases, starting with reaction time, that instinctive response to the starter's pistol. More critical is phase two. block clearance, the initial ballistic push—body low. chin tucked, arms swinging up to the head and all the way back. You set up the race with the drive phase, your torso and head gradually rising like a plane on the runway, accelerating for the first 30 meters. Then comes the pivotal gear shift, phase four, the transition to over­drive. Too early and it's like a jet taking oil'before it builds up sufficient thrust. At 30 to 35 meters elite sprinters kick into phase five, accelerating till they hit maxi­mum velocity around 55 to 65 meters. Maintenance is what Smith terms the next 20 to 25 meters, extending the maximum velocity. What's left? The final 15 to 20 meters, where, surprisingly, sprinters actually decelerate. Smith laughs. "I call that phase Oh shit!'"

Moving smoothly through the sub­tle transitions in under 10 seconds is extraordinarily difficult. "I tend to jump out there and want to get it over and rush it and gel tight." Leonard Scott confesses. "I get in a hurry. I get overanxious. I'm trying to get to the finish line, and you're not supposed to do that. You're supposed to let the finish line come to you." Strangely, Scott's coach says it's not purely a question of speed. "Leonard has the first 60 meters down." explains Smith. "We're working on the last 40. His challenge is getting fit enough to run the 100 meters."

How can a runner tire in eight seconds? "Great sprinters generate huge amounts of rotary velocity, says biomechanics expert Ralph Mann. Elite sprinters, says Mann, take five steps every second. "Try that standing still," he says, "let alone at 12 meters a second."

What happens inside the body? The gun fires and the sprinter drives his legs in a furious push, arms pumping. He burns fuel like a rocket engine. The explosive muscle contractions devour the small stores of energy in the cells, known

as ATP (adenosine triphosphate). Within two to three seconds the exhausted ATP is supplemented by creatine phosphate, but that energy store too is quickly depleted. Scientists dub ATP and creatine phos­phate levels the phosphagen system—a six- to eight-second energy surge. Once the sprinter runs low on ATP. he begins to slow. The deceleration is so slight it is imperceptible to the human eye, but not to the timer counting hundredths of a second. How can you keep from decel­erating? "The further into the race you can accelerate, the later you slow down," says Dr. Robert Vaughan, an expert in exercise phvsiology who heads training theory for USA Track &.- Field. "You have only about 20 meters of top speed. If that speed occurs deeper in the race, you'll slow down later."

It sounds counterintuitive: To go faster you must hold back vour speed. But it isn't the only sprinting fundamental that has been radically updated in the past two decades. As recently as the late 1970s coaches told sprinters the longer the stride, the better. Old sprint texts declare that the more lime a sprinter spends earthbound. pushing, the better. But in the early 1980s Mann started showing coaches films and computer analysis that proved excessive ground time was the enemy. "They thought I was nuts," he says, but the evidence didn't lie. Great sprint­ers like Greene spend less then a tenth of a second on the ground for each stride. Mann's studies proved differences in air lime among elite sprinters were minimal. "It's how quickly you get off the ground."

When the sprinter's foot first hits, it actu­ally breaks his fall. The talented sprinter quickly follows with a big "down push," generating force from 600 to 800 pounds as the ankle and foot come underneath the hips. What happens in back? "The bet­ter sprinters shift everything toward the front," says Mann. "If you could physically do it, vou'd never push off in back." What about that graceful forward lean? Except when accelerating and when leaning at the tape, Mann says, "most of the great sprint­ers run straight up and down."

By the late 1980s most coaches had come around to Mann's thinking, focus­ing more on stride frequency than length, on increasing the sprinter's equivalent of RPMs. Smith and Mann have known each other since they competed in col­lege. "He's a scientist. He bounces things off me, and I bounce them off him," says Smith. "He has helped me to quantify my assumptions. He'll sil down and explain how it works, why it works and why it works faster." And of course Smith took the mechanics and physics out of the lab and onto the track.

Smith likens sprinting to riding a bike. |usi as there's an optimum air pressure tor a bike tire. Smith aims for his run­ners to hil a sweet spot, the foot landing about six to six and a half inches in front of their center of mass. The perfect place to touch down is (he ball of the foot, says Smith. "That's your power point."

Land too far forward of your hips and "you're blocking, you re nol round at the

wheel," according to Smith. Strike flat-footed or on your heel and you'll rack up excessive ground time and generate less force. Land in front of the ball of your foot and "you're making the lever too long, which makes you slow."

Balance is critical. "Everything is round; everything is up under you." Smith says. "You can't flatten out." Nor can you tire. Mann's films and studies have proved man cannot run (he 100 meters flat-out, and Smith's success has come in training his sprinters to maintain more of their speed in the final 15 to 20 meters. "You want to delav your max acceleration as far down the track as you can." Smith says. "If I can max at 65 meters instead of 58, I haven't used up all my energv. I'll have a better Finish."

That precise calculus—shifting only when your body is ready—contrasts sharply with the warrior psyche of a sprinter, the mental games, the thunder­cloud of a race. Hundred-meter runners tend toward the wild.

"I'm like a lion in a cage just ready to come out." says Maurice Greene. "The beginning of the race is very intense: pure power, pure intensity. Aggression.'

Greene s story begins at the Third Street Church of God. Tall with red-and-brown bricks, it stands in a forgotten corner of Kansas City, Kansas. The projects are at one end. and across the street lies a dismal stretch of empty weedy lots broken up by a few homes that have fallen into disre­pair. When night falls, dealers and pros­titutes wave down cars, the background soundtrack of rap music sometimes bro­ken by gunfire. This is where Greene first ran, as a bov. Come the Sabbath he'd be in his Sunday best, vying to be the second-fastest kid on Third Street.

"We were kids out there having fun. playing at church gatherings, racing toward someone or going to the light pole." says Greene. "My brother Ernest was faster. He was older and had a lot of success. I just wanted to be better than him."

The elder Greene signed with Smith's HS1 agency but chose to continue train­ing in Kansas City. Though Ernest was faster and stronger, the younger Greene burned up high school track: state champ in the 100 and 200 three years straight. In 1995 Maurice Greene also signed with Smith and, like his older brother, stayed home to train under Al Hobson. the coach he had had since the age of eight. After failing to make the 1996 national team and having to watch the Atlanta Olympics from the stands. Greene says. "I decided I had lo leave Kansas." He saw whal had happened to his brother: Wildly talented. Ernest Greene just hadn t made it. "My dad and I gol in mv CMC Jimmy, and we drove on out to L.A. I still remember my first day. It was September 27, 1996. I told coach Smith. I want to pul LSA Track & Field on my shoulders. "

Smith had one question: "Are you ready to take everything I'm going to throw at your"

This was the off-season, and Greene

trained alongside 1992 Olympic 400-meter champion Quincy Watts from one to three I'm. at the L'CLA track, where Smith coached. "It was very hard for me. He had me do the A skips, B skips, high knees. Everything is body position—how you strike the ground, how your arms swing. Your hands are your feet, your forearms your shins, your upper arms your thighs. I had to learn how to walk again. We would lift weights and then go out to the track. I would be very sore. The first time I threw up I heard them saying, 'We got one!'"

The arduous training left Greene literally too exhausted to step off the track. Smith often tossing a sweatshirt over him on the infield at three p.m. as the breeze kicked up. "I would be so tired, I would just lie there and sleep." says Greene. "Coach would start working out the college guys, and I would be just waking up when they'd be finishing at five."

Greene's Nike contract was a bare-bones $20,000, and he was so broke he slept on a friend's couch for several months. Even worse, he didn't seem to be getting any faster. "I was running meets, not even in the top three," he says. "I was worried: Man. is this going to happen? I gotta be a realist. What if I couldn't make it?" Greene started check­ing the classifieds for a job. "I went to the Prefontaine meet, ran 10.19 and took fifth. I was discouraged. Then I went to the 200. I was mad that I was in lane eight. I wasn't putting that much effort into it, and 1 looked over and saw I was in last place. Something clicked in me. I got the body position, ran everybody down and took third."

The nationals were next, 'just before the race. Coach told me, "You're about to run fast. Don't get too excited. Look at the time, take a deep breath and walk off like you knew you could do it.' I ran 9.96 easy! I jogged in, thinking. Oh mv God, what happened? I took my deep breath. Fireworks were going off inside. I was thinking, I know how to do it. I can do it anytime I want now!"

Greene did it again in the finals, winning in 9.9. He did it later that summer in Athens at the world championships, defeating the defending Olympic champion and world-record holder, Donovan Bailey. Twice more he would win 100-meter world champion­ships, once taking both the 100 and 200, a feat never before achieved in men's com­petition. He set world records in the 100 and 60 meters, the only man ever to hold both records simultaneously, and took gold in the 100 meters and 4x100 relay at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Barely more than a year later Greene discovered his mortality. He was side-swiped while flying down a freeway near Los Angeles on a motorcycle. He suffered a potentially career-ending injury: a broken fibula. Greene guarded the accident like a state secret, leaving the scene without even filing a police report. It was early 2002. Doctors kept him off his leg for a month, and then he began arduous pool workouts. Not until late April did he even step onto a track. Smith didn't dare put him in a meet before the nationals in late June. Miracu­lously Greene won that year's L'.S. cham­pionships in 9.88. but in rushing back he ) incurred nagging hamstring and quadri-

ceps pulls and struggled to return to form. The tabloids in Britain dubbed him Slo-Mo. Still, in Athens, Greene nearly won back-to-back Olympic golds in the 100. Looking back, he believes a tactical error may have cost him the second victory. He eased up in the semifinal and took third. Relegated to an outside lane in the final, he says he "couldn't feel the inside of the race." Still, only two hundredths of a second separated his bronze from gold.

Leonard Scott slides his shoulders under a bar holding twice his weight. He squares his hips. The time is a little before eight a.m., the place Gold's Gym in Venice, California. The air is thick with grunts and the sound of clanging w eights. Looking down from the walls are images of a bulging Arnold Schwarzenegger, who trained here, and other monstrous Mr. Olympias.

"Straight from your feet!" commands Smith. "Now all the way up. Straight from the hips. Push the bar! Push it straight!"

For Scott, the man who would be cham­pion, it's another day at the office. His body shaking under the load, he rushes the next one. "You're trying to gel out of it," smiles

Smith wickedly. "Enjoy it!" One more bru­tal squat. "Let's go, Leonard!" Smith barks. The sprinter drives the bar, legs wobbling.

Scott staggers out from under it. "My legs are gone," he wearily confesses. "We've been in the weight room every day this week. We've been running some crazy workouts: 400 meters, 300, 200, 100." He shakes his head. "You come here in the weight room, squatting all this heavy weight. Then vou have to go out and run, legs just dead."

Scott has reason to be tired. He was up this morning at his usual 5:45 to shower, eat his oatmeal and drive the hour and 15 minutes to Gold's. In the two years since the 26-year-old quit football and dedicated himself to track, his bodv and fitness have been transformed. A nutritionist counsels Smith's sprinters, and Scott has the enthu­siasm of the converted. He often dines by six I'.m. and is in bed before 10. He also makes certain to feed his muscles. Within minutes of his last morning sprint, Scott makes himself a protein drink right on the infield. "You have to put something in your body, he says. "You have microtears in your muscles. You have to rebuild those microtears." Lunch is a sandwich and salad: dinner is baked chicken or fish with veg­etables. His weight has dropped from 195

pounds to 183. "I'm lighter than I was plav-ing football," he says, "but I'm stronger."

Squats and power cleans are his critical lower-body lifts, but the track is where he really works his legs. "A lot of people are amazed we do weights early in the morn­ing and then get on the track," savs Scott. "Our legs are already tired, and we're try­ing to do a workout." The feeling is "almost like pulling the rubber band back." he says. "The weight feels like a heavy load." Then when the big meets come, says Scott. "Coach takes us out of the weight room. He lets that rubber band go."

Months have passed since 1 first endured a couple of painful days training with Smith's sprinters. This morning I ask Greene how he s doing, and he shakes his head and smiles ruefully. "I had a little setback. A little minor injury," he says quietly. "My calf." He pauses. "I wish as runners we would, like, tweak something in our arm," he laughs. "Because if we did that, we could still run. It's always something with your calf or your hamstring. You can't run, and then you lose a week and a half or two weeks, and it's hard getting back. I wish I'd be running and then 'Owww. my arm!"'

Greene tells me about the ultrasound, electrical stimulation and massage he has been getting for his ailing calf. Then even-one gathers on the infield for the start of the workout, stretching and jiving and spik­ing up. Smith makes Torri Ldwards blush as he teases her about her attention-getting chartreuse tights. Watching Scott shed his gray sweats and reveal his massive thighs and muscled torso, I think of how little sep­arates good from great. At the end of 2006 Scott was ranked third in the world. If he holds or raises that ranking, you'll hear his name at the Olympics. If he slips a tenth of a second or sustains an injury, he'll be just another sprinter who didn't make it.

Greene is in the blocks. In a minute ESPN will go live with the first of three heats of the men's 100-meter dash at the 2007 Adidas Track Classic in Carson. California. Greene is cycling through his movement, little bursts that propel him halfway down the track. He walks back easily in his plain, thick gray sweatshirt stained with the sweat from his long warm-up. Veins bulge on his shaved head. Today he is one of several Smith ath­letes in the 100; they will get 10 seconds or so to prove whether they have it.

Greene's heat approaches, and the sta­dium announcer introduces the athletes. "Maurice Greene, 2000 gold medalist and 2004 bronze medalist. American record holder in 9.79...." The camera boom sweeps over the sprinters' heads, and a hush falls over the stadium. Greene is last lo the line, last to settle into his blocks. The gun fires, and this time it isn't there. Thirty meters in. Greene moves to shift and can't find the gear. He trots the last 20 meters, looking as if he's trying not to pull a muscle, dead last.

I trail Greene as he talks to reporters, signs autographs for kids and then faces a tougher critic than the media, a finely sculpted knockout in heels and rapri pants

who appears to be his girlfriend. "I couldn't," he shrugs, shaking his head. "I couldn't get out of the blocks. I can't get my tempo."

Greene heads into the crowd to the top of the stadium with the rest of his team­mates who have finished their races or weren't scheduled to run. His crappy race all but forgotten, he enjoys the track meet with his friends.

The sleek, unflappable Torri Edwards is up in the 100. The gun fires, and her start seems unremarkable. The first 10 meters she's no better than fourth. At 30 meters she calmly accelerates. Midway down the track her afterburner kicks in. Her confi­dence and control are uncanny. Everything they've been doing in practice the past six months, the whole Smith manifesto, she packs it all into this tight 10 seconds. You can feel it while you watch her. She's taking her sweet time, delaying her speed deeper into the race, and just like that she jets into the lead. Olympic gold medalist Veronica Campbell closes hard, but Edwards dips first at the line, so fast she has to skitter

over in front of her competitors to avoid barreling into the photographers.

Her time flashes on the big electronic board: 10.9, the fastest in the world this year for a woman so far, the best of Edwards's lifetime. She leaps joyously around the track. Greene hugs his teammates, jumping up and down, screaming. A performance this impressive means Edwards has a shot at Olympic gold, and Greene is ecstatic, pointing at the spot 35 yards down the track where the race was won, where his team­mate and friend ran her perfect sprint.

"Did you see the gear she had right there?" Greene exclaims, eyes wide, turning to his teammates. "I knew it! I knew it!"

Time was not on Greene's side. A nag­ging calf injury sidelined him for most of the 2007 season, and in early 2008, with another season of grueling workouts on the horizon, Greene announced his retire­ment, his dream of a third Olympic 100-meter Final dashed.

Out of running, he would not remain out of the news. The steroid scandal looms over the upcoming Olympics. On May 29. Trevor Graham, the former North Carolina-based track coach of drug-tainted former cham­pion Marion Jones, was found guiltv of one count of lying to federal investigators about his relationship with a steroids dealer. The government's prime witness told The New York Times that Maurice Greene paid for banned substances in 2003 and 2004. Greene acknowledged paying for items for members of his training group but said he didn't know what he was paying for. "None of this is new," International Association of Athletics Federations spokesman Nick Davies told the AR "There is no reason to take action against Maurice." Davies added that the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency had found no evidence against Greene, who has never failed a doping test.

Controversy continued to swirl when a let­ter, allegedly written by Greene's old training partner Ato Boldon, surfaced on a website, calling coach John Smith "the emperor with no clothes" and insinuating Smith himself has known of performance-enhancing-drug use among his runners. Boldon has yet to make clear whether he wrote the letter. Smith and Greene had no comment.

Torri Edwards s impressive race at the Adidas Track Classic kicked oil her best season in several years. She won the 100 meters at the 2007 Prefontaine Classic and at the premier international meets in France, Switzerland and Italy. She earned a number two world ranking heading into the Olympics.

Leonard Scott had double knee surgery to repair loose ligaments and then suffered a hamstring tear running indoors. He was a long shot to make the U.S. Olympic team.

Rookie Lcroy Dixon dropped his 100-meter time to 10.07, took two seconds in international meets and anchored the U.S. world championship 4x100 meter relay team in Osaka.

All last season Jeremy Wariner contin­ued his steady dominance, maintaining his number one world ranking in the 400 for the fourth straight year and winning the race at the 2007 world championships in his best time ever, 43.45—just 0.27 seconds behind Michael Johnson's world record. Then Wariner shocked the world of track and field by abruptly firing his longtime coach, Clyde Hart, and turning over his training to the respected but unheralded Baylor associate coach Michael Ford. Initial reports spoke of a contract dispute.

After a fast late-April run at the Penn Relays, Wariner told reporters, "1 want to break this record and be the first one to 42 seconds. It could happen at any time in the season."

Wariner won easily again at the Adidas Track Classic this May despite a sore ham­string. While signing autographs and pos­ing for photos, Wariner heard one of his fans repeat the same line about the world record: "43.17, Jeremy. We're looking for it this year."

Don't be surprised if Wariner breaks that record while winning an Olympic gold in Beijing.

"I TOOK MY DEEP BREATH. FIREWORKS WERE GOING OFF INSIDE. I WAS THINKING, I CAN DO IT NOW!"

JEREMY WARINER (LEFT) COMPETING IN THE 4X400 RELAY AT THE 2007 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS IN OSAKA.

Greene guarded the accident

like a state secret,

leaving the scene without

even filing a police report.

Doctors kept him off his leg

for a month.