Freeman and Jones hold centrestage as others fall to
curse

By LOUISE EVANS
6:25PM, Oct 01

Marion Jones has been waiting for today to dawn for two years,
and now that it's here she doesn't
want the sun to set.

In front of record Olympic crowds, the greatest female athlete
in the world made history by winning
five medals at her first Games in Sydney.

They weren't all gold as she would have wished, but five medals
is historic as no other woman has
netted such a tally at one Olympics.

The 23-year-old American with the heart-shaped face did it by
racing 10 times in nine days and
jumping seven times in the long jump. No wonder she was tired
this morning. But she woke feeling
joyously content for she did it against enormous odds.

When news broke mid-Olympics that her husband, world shot put
champion C.J. Hunter, had tested
positive, it cast a dark shadow on her world. But showing
strength of character that won her even more hearts, she rose above the
scandal
and kept on rising.

Her first gold medals came in the 100 and 200 metres, then two
bronzes in the long jump and 100m relay and finally a third gold in the
400m
relay.

''I still feel in my heart I had a chance to win the long jump
and that we had a chance in the 4 x 100, but overall it was a very
successful
Games, very challenging definitely, but overall it was a very
good experience,'' Jones said.

''I am just going to really enjoy this right now. Right now I
just want to take this all in.''

Jones's US teammates, Olympic 100m champion Maurice Greene and
Mr 400m Michael Johnson, will leave Sydney with two golds apiece after
winning their individual sprint and relay events.

Like Jones, Greene has vowed to defend his title at the next
Olympics in Athens in 2004, but Johnson wants to retire as the best 400m
runner
the world has ever seen.

Whether Cathy Freeman will call it quits remains to be seen.
Freeman is feeling nothing but relief today that she doesn't have to
race or chase
again.

Her gold medal in the 400m will go down in history as one of
the most watched events at any Olympics and second only to her lighting
of the
cauldron.

But while Freeman lives to run and runs to win, she is not
comfortable with the fame that accompanies it. She declined to discuss
her seventh
placing in the 200m final and fifth in the 400m relay, and
walked away from people calling her name without a second look.

A career in politics has been muted, but it would seem unlikely
for a shy Aboriginal woman who chooses her words as frugally as if she
was
writing a telegram.

Regardless of her future athletic pursuits, these were
Freeman's Games and she reigned over one of the greatest nights of sport
ever seen.

It was a night that Tatiana Grigorieva guaranteed her face
would adorn every magazine published in Australia before Christmas when
she
flew to a silver medal in the pole vault.

As the bar crept ever higher, Romania's dual world 5000m
champion Gabriela Szabo was surging on the track, not once but four
times in the
final lap, to hold off Ireland's Sonia O'Sullivan for her first
Olympic gold.

And then in the men's 10,000, multiple world cross-country
champion Paul Tergat raced with four-time world and defending Olympic
champion
Haile Gebrselassie for 25 laps, only to be beaten in the last
few desperate strides to the line.

And on this same wondrous night out in the sand pit, the
English pastor's son Jonathan Edwards won a triple jump gold medal for
his wife
back home, who was grieving for the mother she buried on the
day of the opening ceremony.

Great sporting achievement uplifts the human spirit, but it can
also soothe aching souls.

Nothing will be able to console the four great athletes who
were felled by the Olympic curse. Six-time world pole vault champion
Sergey
Bubka once again had a wasted Olympic journey following his
doomed 1992 and 1966 campaigns. He no-heighted, again.

Cursed, too, is Gail Devers, the US hurdle diva who was felled
by injury midway through the 100m event, a shocking deja vu following
her fall
at the line in 1992.

Also doomed was the once unbeatable Hicham El Guerrouj, who
carried a photograph of his 1500m defeat at the 1996 Atlanta Games with
him for four years. ''Those who forget are doomed to repeat''
was his mantra. Yet beaten he was in the home straight of the 1500m
final by
his one-time best man Noah Ngeny. Even now, to see Ngeny's name
listed first on the result sheet is hard to believe.

The fourth to suffer the curse was Kenyan-Dane Wilson Kipketer,
who has three world titles but no Olympic gold medal after being beaten
in
his 800m event by a German, Nils Schumann.

There were upsets aplenty on the track, but none so shocking as
the victory by Kon the Greek. Rest assured the new Olympic 200m
champion Konstantinos Kenteris will be lighting the torch at
the 2004 Games in Athens following his unheralded victory.

Maybe Jones might up the ante there and go for six golds by
adding Freeman's event to her program.

Now that would be a race.