Jeremy Wariner

Wariner chases mentor's mark

Len Johnson
February 15, 2008

NOT many things have the power to daunt Jeremy Wariner right now.

Just turned 24, Wariner is the Olympic champion at 400 metres and has won the past two world championships. He has his sights set on Michael Johnson's world-record 43.18 seconds and, with winning in Beijing, it is his biggest goal for the year.

Not even Johnson, widely regarded as the greatest long sprinter of all time, puts Wariner in awe. Johnson is, after all, Wariner's mentor and he gets to talk to him all the time. "He watches my races, he critiques them, he picks up on little things," Wariner told a John Landy lunch here yesterday.

One of Johnson's achievements does have Wariner totally in thrall, however, his world-record 19.32 seconds in winning the 200 at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Wariner was just a "little tacker". "I saw the race on TV," he said. "I really didn't know much about track at the time. Now when I think about it, I'm like, 'Dang, that's amazing'."

When Johnson did it, the performance was so far removed from anything before it that it was dubbed "space age". Frank Fredericks ran 19.6-something behind Johnson that night and was daylight second. Even now, 12 years later, the fact that Tyson Gay and several others are running the same times Fredericks did excites attention.

So Wariner might be chasing Johnson's 43.18, but the 19.32 is not yet on the horizon, much less the agenda.

The 200, however, is on his list of things to be done. Wariner will run the 200 at the US Olympic trials this year, not, he says, with the intention of making the team in that event — not yet, anyway — but as part of a tough racing program to prepare him for Beijing. The 400 is out of the way before the preliminaries of the 200, so running it will not affect his premier distance.

But the world record is another matter. "I don't think anybody is going to get close to that; 19.3 is a fantastic time. I've got to break 20 before I can even think about that," he said.

Wariner told the lunch, held to launch tomorrow night's Sydney grand prix, that his success was due to "hard work, dedication and the fact that I love my work".

Since becoming Olympic champion in Athens at the age of 20, Wariner has established a dominance over his rivals. He could be on top of the event for a while yet.

When Wariner went to Waco's Baylor University, he was coached by Johnson's old coach, Clyde Hart. The pair have split recently, but he will continue to train with one of Hart's ex-assistants, so the philosophy will not change.

Wariner said Hart had not modified his natural technique but rather developed his strengths, which, in turn, helped smooth out some minor faults. "My training was based on strength and speed. You can't work on one thing and hope the other will be there," he said.

Wariner will race over 200 metres here tomorrow night, then run his one and only Australian 400 metres in Melbourne at Olympic Park next Thursday night.

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