On a cool, gusty Saturday night, before 100,000 people in Sydney’s Olympic Stadium, Jones, 24, calmly stepped to the starting line, ignoring a swarm of moths, and stared down the 100-meter straightaway. Then she blasted out of the blocks, victory ensured within the first 10 meters, and finished, high-stepping, in 10.75 seconds. Her margin of victory, five meters and .37 seconds, was the greatest since the Olympics officially adopted electronic timing in 1968. “Somebody asked me if I was saving something for later in the week,” Jones said afterward. “Saving something? This is the Olympic Games. I wasn’t saving anything.”
Ten minutes later, after the last flash-bulb flared on Jones’s victory, 26-year-old “Mo” Greene toed the line. When Greene, who has had to overcome slow starts in the past, broke OK, this race, too, was never in doubt. By 50 meters–“drive phase accelerating to top-end speed,” is Greene’s technical description–he was powering ahead of the field and on to victory in 9.87 seconds. Then Mo bounced his way into the arms of silver medalist Ato Boldon of Trinidad and Tobago, a training partner, before the two knelt on the track in thankful prayer. “In Atlanta there were tears of sadness,” said Greene. “Tonight there were tears of joy.”
Jones, leaping and pumping her arm, showed as much emotion as she’s ever displayed at a competition. Her incandescent smile lasted until she reached her mother and her coach, Trevor Graham, in the stands. Then tears began to flow. She regained her composure for the flag-draped victory lap (she carried a second flag, that of Belize, her mother’s homeland). “I’ve seen a lot of Olympic Games when people cross the [finish] line,” Jones said. “I was like, ‘I’m going to cross the line and be a cool cat.’ And then all of sudden you realize that you can be described–finally–as an Olympic champion. It’s very emotional.”
Before the start of his race, Mo was characteristically fidgety, all head rolls, darting glances, tongue whirls and to-and-froing. His coach, former Olympic sprinter John Smith, had instructed Greene to focus on his start. But all he could remember before the gun was praying silently. Still, Greene had come prepared to celebrate, wearing red, white and blue Nikes, which became valuable souvenirs for some lucky fans when he hurled them into the stands. “I gave them all that I could and then I gave them something extra–my shoes,” he said.
Neither Greene nor Jones made it to the Atlanta Games four years ago–Jones due to a fractured foot that kept her out of the Olympic Trials, Greene because of the result of an uncharacteristically flat-footed performance at the trials. But that shared disappointment is one of the few things, other than their sport, the two have in common. Off the track, Greene is affable, at times even goofy, with a broad smile and a constant patter. He and his buddies tooled around in a yellow Ferrari and hung out at the beach-volleyball venue on Bondi Beach. Though it was hard to detect amid the throng (and thongs) of women that surrounded him, Greene says he was so nervous that he couldn’t eat or sleep. “This week was very tough for me,” he said. “I might have looked loose, but I was very nervous.”
Nothing runs faster, usually, than Mo’s mouth. But in Sydney, with his chief rivals also his closest friends, Mo was relatively restrained. There was little of the trash talk with which Greene taunted Michael Johnson at the Olympic Trials. There was no trace of humility either, just an absolute confidence that everyone else was running for second place.
Jones, by contrast, is reserved and refined. No less confident, she has stead-fastly claimed that she will win five gold medals, one-upping America’s greatest track legends Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis. (Jones will compete in the long jump and 200 meters later this week, then run on both the 4 x 100 and 4 x 400 relay teams on Saturday.) She makes her boast so matter-of-factly that it comes off as arrogance to her opponents. Off the track, Jones was all but invisible in Sydney. She prefers hanging with her husband, world champion shot putter C. J. Hunter and a small inner circle of friends. (Hunter had to scratch from the shot put with a knee injury.) “He’s my biggest support,” she said of the scowling 330-pounder, who serves as enforcer of the couple’s privacy.
Though Jones hasn’t lost a 100 since 1997, she took no chances. In one early heat, she wore a new collar-to-knee suit designed by Nike for Sydney’s September chill. But she wore her usual uniform in the semis and final. And she chose not to don an experimental pair of running shoes that, at 3.5 ounces, are the lightest ever made. She probably knew she didn’t need any added edge. In her opening heat, she virtually slowed to a halt in the final meters and still breezed home in 10.83, a time that would have made her a runaway winner in Atlanta.
Greene won his opening heat in 10.31–virtually a trotting time for him. Reporters, puzzled over this subpar performance, were even more surprised to see his elation at the effort. Finally, he confided that he had won not only a race but a bet with his roomies, Boldon and Jon Drummond, on who could win a heat in the slowest time.
Any Olympic time at all had to be something of a thrill for Greene. Four years ago, after his embarrassing flop in the Olympic Trials, he could hardly bear to watch the Games. When they were over, he made the tough decision to leave his longtime coach for Smith’s big-time running stable in Los Angeles. Smith discovered he had a new runner with great talent, questionable technique and little clue about how to prepare for or run a race. But what appealed to his coach above all was his “unquenchable desire.” Within a year Greene was U.S. and world champion. And last year he set the world record of 9.79 seconds.
For Jones the greatest obstacle to her Olympic stardom was her very versatility: while winning nine California state titles in track, she was also a much-ballyhooed high-school basketball star. But after leading the University of North Carolina to a national basketball championship in her freshman year–and suffering two foot injuries–she gave up the hard court. “No one was going to tell me I couldn’t play basketball and run track at the same time,” she says. “But I came to understand that I couldn’t realize my Olympic dream without committing full time.”
Greene will anchor the U.S. 4 x 100 relay team this week, but his dream is already fulfilled, his stature ensured. “I knew that no matter what I accomplished in my career–and I’ve already accomplished a lot–I would never be considered among the true greats if I didn’t win the Olympic gold medal,” he said. Jones aims to be remembered as even more. Her husband tried to temper her victory celebration with the admonition that “now we start all over again.” But for one night she begged off all talk of what was to come. “Can I just enjoy this one for a couple more minutes?” she pleaded. Jones is entitled to her night. She’s ours for these Games.
