Mark Lewis Francis v The Clock

kitkat1 · March 14, 2006, 4:10am

[ PAT BUTCHER IS THE MOST PERCEPTIVE ATHLETICS WRITER IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. ANYTHING HE WRITES IS WORTH A LOOK. kk] Giving it both barrels

Seeing Asafa Powell, whom he beat as a youngster, come through and set the world record was the final straw

Pat Butcher
Sunday March 12, 2006
The Observer

One of the most depressing statistics in athletics is the 90 per cent of junior champions who do not graduate to similar success in the senior ranks. For a long time, it seemed that Mark Lewis-Francis had beaten the odds as easily as he was beating the clock. But anyone who saw him give new meaning to the term ‘barrelling down the track’, to cling on to world relay bronze in Helsinki last summer is entitled to ask, ‘What went wrong?’

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It is a question that Lewis-Francis has been asking himself for the past two years. ‘If I keep running like this, I’m gonna be a has-been,’ he said plaintively when we met at his new training venue. ‘And I don’t want to be a has-been. I want to be one of the best sprinters that ever lived.’
Five and a half years ago, he seemed well on track to that goal. Then 17, Lewis-Francis burst on to the international sprint scene with an unexpected victory in the London Grand Prix. Not only was his 10.10sec by far a personal best for the 100 metres, it also set a world age record.

He followed it up by winning the world junior title by a distance. And when he started the following summer just as explosively, the 1996 Olympic champion, Donovan Bailey, confidently predicted that the Birmingham youngster was a certain Olympic winner: ‘Maybe even in Athens.’

Lewis-Francis did win gold in Athens - in the relay. But the Brits owed their success as much to the United States squad’s inept baton changes as to their own collective excellence, and while relay gold is all very well, it is no substitute for the real thing. In the 100m, Lewis-Francis did not get past the semi-finals. Ditto the world championships in Edmonton 2001 and Paris 2003. At the world championships in Helsinki last summer, he had sunk even further. Demonstrably overweight, he failed to make it past the quarter-finals.

After this bitter disappointment, Lewis-Francis sat down with his agent and decided enough was enough.

Something had to change. And it did. He left his long-time coach, Steve Platt, and the haven of Alexander Stadium, Birmingham, for the elite pastures of Eton, and the Thames Valley Athletics Centre.

Lewis-Francis is the latest inductee to a group coached by Tony Lester, which embraces many of Britain’s sprint hopefuls. They include Christian Malcolm, Marlon Devonish, Chris Lambert, and the most successful Briton on the track in Helsinki last summer, the 400 metres man Tim Benjamin.

It was, says Lewis-Francis, the results from Lester’s group that ultimately persuaded him to make the move south. ‘Tony wasn’t the only option we had, but this option was the best. Look at Tim Benjamin. Marlon Devonish equalled his fastest in eight years. I’m just here to see what happens. I’m not going to say miracles are gonna happen straightaway, because everyone knows the reality. It’s gonna take time to settle, to get used to the training programmes. My main aim is the Beijing Olympics, to be flying in Beijing. What people are forgetting is I’m only 23 and as long the legs are on my body I’ll be in London 2012, but I’ll definitely be in Beijing 2008.’

Lewis-Francis has not found it easy adapting to his new environment, or the punishing workload. ‘It was really nerve-racking. I was almost afraid to get out of bed the first couple of weeks. Mentally it was hard, because it was new surroundings, and I didn’t know what to expect. I was unfit, and I’d heard that Tony worked the guys really hard. Physically, I wasn’t ready, I was really stiff, but the guys were great. If I was struggling, they would say, “Come on Mark, you can do it,” and that gave me inspiration, and gradually I warmed into it.’

Lester, for his part, was shocked at Lewis-Francis’s condition - or rather lack of it. ‘When he first came down here, I think it was a bit of a culture shock. It appears that he’d pretty much been left to do his own thing in regard to training. No disrespect to his previous coach, but Mark is an immensely talented guy, his talent is there for all to see. But that’s not enough, you’ve also got to put the work in to back up the talent, and that what’s he’s been doing. It’s not easy if you’re not used to it. The first four months, he just had to knuckle down and get his hands dirty. He’s still got some way to go, you can’t do it overnight, you’ve got to take it slowly, give yourself time to adjust to the workload.’

Lewis-Francis admits that the move to Eton was probably long overdue, but suggests that his temporising had much to do with loyalty to Platt, who had also been thrust into the role of surrogate father when he took over the then 12-year-old. But seeing Asafa Powell, whom he beat as a youngster, come through and set the world record was the final straw.

'Obviously it’s annoyed me, because I beat those guys so easily in the world junior champs. They’ve progressed. They’ve been doing for the last how many years what I’m now doing myself.

'The whole set-up is amazing, physio, massage, everything is on call. I’ve got a nutritionist, everything has just been sorted out for me. I’m just gutted that it didn’t happen earlier. I’m not saying that I wanted to leave Steve earlier, but everything is so professionally organised at Eton. I’m not slating Birmingham, but because there’s more sprinters down there, the whole set-up is a lot better.

‘It’s a massive step, but these are the things you have to do to further your career. I don’t want to jump the gun and say I’m back, but it’s a new beginning, a new area, a new coach.’

The immediate aim is strengthening, in part to help avoid the injuries that have provoked the weight gains and blighted his progress since a muscle tear brought him crashing to the ground during the Commonwealth Games sprint final in Manchester 2002. The initial competitive aim is to use this week’s Commonwealth Games in Melbourne as the first step back on to the winning track.

‘The work that I’m doing with Tony is all conditioning work, it’s all getting me prepared for the fast stuff. The aim for 2006 is to go out there and show the world. Get into a Commonwealth final, that would be realistic at the moment. But the main aim for me is to go to the Europeans [Gothenburg in August] and win, to be the best in Europe.’

Having left for Australia in late January, in order to prepare properly for Melbourne, his first competition could not have been more encouraging. In the stadium that will host the Games, Lewis-Francis won his comeback race. But then a week ago, in poor conditions in Brisbane, he could finish only fifth.

‘To come out and run 10.22sec, and win the race, against people who’ve already had three or four races this season, that was really exciting. But Brisbane was horrible, I don’t think I’ve ever competed in conditions like that in the UK. It was raining, it was cold, it was windy, it was horrible. I knew I wasn’t going to run a fast time, and that’s what I’d gone to Brisbane for. It’s definitely not an indication of the shape I’m in.’

Lester was equally unfazed by the apparent setback. ‘I don’t think anyone ran well in Brisbane. The main thing was, he still went out there and ran a race. Right now, I think he’s in very good shape to run fast. How fast, I can’t predict. The plan all along was to make the final, a medal would be a bonus.’

Should he manage that, Lester will take little of the credit. ‘I’m not the solution to Mark’s problems. The better he runs, the more his self-esteem will grow. This first year is a foundation year. I’d like to think there’ll be big improvements. My only fear is that when an athlete comes to you so late in the day, not having done the right amount of preparation work, there’s always the risk of injury and breaking down. But if Mark stays healthy and doesn’t break down, there’s every chance he’s going to be a very good competitor.’

One of the reasons that his talent has had a difficult time coming through is that Lewis-Francis’s life off the track has not been smooth running either. He had a rude lesson in the price of celebrity in 2002 when he was very publicly arrested at Birmingham Airport on his way back home from the European indoor championships. It was only for a minor motoring offence, but he was carted off to jail for the night and taken straight to court the following day.

The following year, he had a child at 20 and, no longer with the mother, is bringing up baby with his new partner. Then he lost a European medal last year when a post-race dope test revealed traces of cannabis in his urine.

This inevitably raises the spectre of Dwain Chambers, the reigning European champion, who is due to come back soon from a drugs ban. It is the only time during our interview that Lewis-Francis gets in any way exasperated. When I first mention Chambers, he simply purses his lips and gives a knowing smile. But when we get on to his cannabis episode, he bursts out: 'Don’t make me sound like Dwain Chambers. I didn’t take steroids to enhance my performance.

‘The cannabis was passive smoking, I was in a club where I shouldn’t have been. Let’s draw a line under that, I left that behind in Birmingham. When I go to talk in schools, the kids don’t ask me about cannabis, they ask how they can do what I did.’

Apart from the initial reluctance to talk about Chambers, the only subject he doesn’t want to broach is baby Romeo, except to point out that he got in before the Beckhams.

But when asked about the responsibility of bringing up a three-year-old, he says: 'It’s hard having a kid, but it’s not a burden, it’s a blessing, it’s another level, another paragraph in the book.

‘My mom and dad were never together when I was younger, but my dad always spent a lot of time with me. I’m doing things with him that I always wanted to do with my dad. The little gaps in life, I’m filling them with him. When I’m standing on the track, I’m not just running for me, I’m running for me and my boy. It’s not just my future, it’s our future.’