Third man Crawford intends to sprint out of the shadows

http://www.iaaf.org/OLY04/news/Kind=2/newsId=26878.html

Third man Crawford intends to sprint out of the shadows

Friday 20 August 2004

20 August 2004 - Athens, Greece - Despite the recent attention on the developing sprint rivalry between reigning Olympic champion Maurice Greene and young challenger Asafa Powell, double sprint world leader Shawn Crawford believes he’s the man to beat as competition in the men’s short dash begins Saturday morning (21 Aug).

“I think the person to beat in this race, for me, since I’m a cocky person, is myself,” said Crawford, whose 9.88 and 19.88 performances pace the world this season.

“There are a lot of flaws in my race, and we’ve been working hard to try to fix those, and I feel like if I can master each part of my race, and turn in a stellar performance on each phase of my race, I just feel like I can’t be beaten. But it’s up to me. If I beat myself, that’s how I’m going to lose. But if I don’t beat myself, they’re not going to beat me.”

Already proven himself as a big meet competitor - the 26-year-old has raced to World indoor bronze in Budapest earlier this year, a bronze medal in the 200 in Edmonton three years ago, and a World Indoor crown in the longer sprint in 2001- Crawford has emerged this season as a consistent threat, embodied by his impressive performance at the U.S. Olympic Trials last month in Sacramento.

In the 100, he ran 10.00, 10.08 and 9.93 twice, finishing third, and in the 200, ran 19.88, 20.09, 20.00 and 19.99 to win. He’s raced only once since, a 10.14 wind-aided win in Munich two weeks ago.

“We just thought it was a smart move to rest,” he said. “That was a lot of rounds and that’s a lot of stress on the body. And after that, after running eight rounds - I was running pretty fast in every round - it takes the body time to recover, so we just focused on recovering and working on the smaller things. Some of the things I made mistakes on in those races, and on trying to put together a flawless, or near flawless race. So when we come here, we can bring that out and showcase it to the world. That’s the reason I hadn’t run since.”

The Race for the title of ‘World’s Fastest Man’

“The actual title implies that the person has put in all the hard work that it has taken up until that point in time and was able to put together the perfect race to achieve the title of “World’s Fastest Man.” It takes a lot of determination. That tells you a lot about someone’s character. They were able to avoid anything that could deter them on their path towards their goal. I feel that if you can achieve the title of world’s fastest man.”

The meaning of Going for the Gold

“Winning the gold medal here,” he said, “that’s very important to me because I feel like it’s bigger than me. I feel like when I’m here. I’m representing my family, my friends, and all the fans who’ve supported me all the way."

"Being the fastest man in the world, of course, that’s the goal. That’s everybody’s goal. My biggest thing is, I’m trying to reach in and pull out all the potential that God has put within me. I just want to see how fast a human can actually run.”

His approach, he said, “is to retrieve all the potential out of myself and put on a good performance so everyone who’s watching can see that humans can do some phenomenal things.”

The first round of the men’s 100 metres is Saturday 21 Aug at 10:35.

NOTE - Crawford is currently third in the IAAF World Rankings for the 100m.

Bob Ramsak for the IAAF

I hope he will go out there and just run instead of thinking about all the “flaws.” If he doesn’t have a “stellar” start, does that mean he will lose?