Can Powell Revert to Old Form Again?
Jamaican 100 metre-specialist Asafa Powell held on to the 100m world record for just under three years, and still holds the fourth best ever time over the distance. Still, though, Powell finds himself without a major gold medal to his name.
In Athens, on June 14, 2005, Powell was running his 100m on the same track that US sprinter Maurice Greene had clocked his 9.79 second world record in 1999.
Following suit with his American colleague, Powell clocked 9.77 seconds, and bettered Tim Montgomery’s world record (later to be discounted after a doping case) by 0.02 seconds.
The tailwind was 1.6m per second, within the IAAF’s limit of 2 m/s, and the world record was Powell’s. In July that year, Powell sustained a groin injury that kept him out of the World Championships.
Though he managed to defend his world record until 2008, Powell has suffered from a series of disappointing performances in the major championships. If injuries haven’t been the problem, disappointing performances have.
Internatioal mediocrity
In both the Athens Olympics in 2004 and in Beijing in 2008, Powell finished fifth in the 100m final.
He did claim a gold medal and a world record in Beijing, but these feats came in the 4x100m relay, which carries less prestige than the solo sprint races.
In 2007, when he was world record holder after clocking 9.77 on three separate occasions, Powell crumbled under pressure in the World Championship final in Osaka, Japan.
Leading after 60m, Powell noticed that US sprinter Tyson g*y was catching up with him, and finished the race in uncharacteristically slow place.
Later, Powell admitted to the BBC that he had failed to respond to the challenged posed by g*y during the race.
“When Tyson came on and gave me a little bit of pressure I just panicked,” he said. “When I saw I wasn't in gold medal contention, I gave up in the middle of the race. I just stopped running.”
Powell, who had been nervously sweating ahead of the race, had failed, yet again, to deliver when it mattered most.
But despite his tendency to crumble under pressure, Powell is also one to bounce back. Two weeks after the final in Osaka, Powell broke his own world record for the third time.
Clocking in at 9.74 seconds in the IAAF Grand Prix in Reiti, Italy, Powell outpaced all competitors in the semi-final and went on to win the final after racing in 9.78 seconds – the fastest anyone other than Powell had ever run.
Bolt's takeover
Since 2007, though, the sprint world has seen the ascendance of Bolt, who clocked 9.72 and later 9.69 seconds in 2008, and in 2009 trimmed his own record to 9.59 seconds.
But Powell, recognizing the magnitude of the threat posed by Bolt and g*y in the 2010 season, remains confident his best performances are yet to come.
At a race in Rome on June 10 this year, the 27-year-old clocked 9.82 seconds in his 100m race, which is the fastest anyone has run this year.
"We have one person dominating now, but there's no superman in the world,” Powell said after his race in Rome.
"Everybody is the same unless they're doing something we don't know about. If you really believe in yourself and work hard, you can achieve. I am thankful for what Usain has done because it has inspired me.”
Encourage by the tremendous form of his countryman, Powell reckons he can pose a serious challenge in the 100m races this year.
If he does, he will have bounced back remarkably, and it wouldn’t be his first time doing so.
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