21 AUGUST 2004, Page 55

Ten seconds to glow

FRANK KEATING

Skip (hop or jump) anything else in the Olympics, but try not to miss the final of the 100 metres this Sunday. The eruptive coruscation will not take up too much of your time. Ten seconds, give or take a fraction, And don't bother to be cynical about drugs — it is simpler to assume that either none of them is doped or that all of them are. Either way, it is something to be witnessing the fastest human on Planet Earth. For added buzz, switch off the sound on your television and listen to the radio commentaty. Ten seconds easily sorts the men from the boys in the commentary box. BBC radio man John Rawling is grand vizier of gabble, sultan of spot-on squawk.

The racereader simply has to get it right on the night. To 'read' the 100m final is as breathtakingly stressful as it is to run it. As the eight finalists, obsessives in singlets and wrapt in brooding introspection, settle at their blocks, far down the track in his broadcast eyrie above the finishing line, the perspiring commentator bites his tongue for that universally embraced moment of utter quietude and stillness before, at a single frightening gunshot, his world explodes into a fulminating din of supercharged catharsis as the eightsome reel catapults itself at full pelt towards him — or rather, diagonally from his left. He has just ten seconds not only to identify and 'call' their eye-blink progress but to nominate which is a millimetre ahead or, as the case may be, a millisecond behind.

This is Raw-ling's fourth Olympics. He hasn't read it wrong yet. Tokyo's were the first Games I worked at 40 summers ago, since when the 100m champs have been Hayes, Hines, Borzov, Crawford, Wells, Lewis, Johnson, Christie, Bailey, Greene — lucky commentators, for each name has no more than two syllables — and Rawling admits he would not have been confident at his microphone as they lined up at the first modern Olympics at Athens in 1896 when hot favourite was local lad, one Alexandros Chalkokondillis. One stumbling mention would have used up the 12.6 seconds the fellow finished in.

The most theatrically explosive 100m I ever saw was Ben Johnson's world record 9.79 secs in Seoul in 1988 — irrespective of his being banned for dope within a day (Ben took the rap, but four of the eight behind him at various times later were to be fingered for drugs). I have just replayed Alan Parry's riveting rabbit of a radio commentary that day: 'Away first time. Johnson out of the blocks very quickly. He has the lead early on. Lewis has some work to do. Christie's got work to do, too. Johnson's got it in his pocket. Lewis isn't going to get it. Johnson wins it, Lewis the silver, Christie the bronze. 'A terrific torrent. Try it at home —49 words in 9.97 seconds.

Historically, I daresay that overpowering day in Seoul can be bested only by Jesse Owens's 100m in front of Hitler in Berlin in 1936. BBC wireless commentary that day was by Harold Abrahams (Brit who'd won the event in the Chariots of Fire Paris Games of 1924). You have to strain to catch the names through the crackling jabber: 'The gun. They're away. Owens is ahead. Strandberg and Borchmeyer fighting, Here comes Wycoff. Metcalfe comes up. But Owens

wins in 10.3. . ' Jolly good, Harold, considering — 22 words in 10.3 seconds.

Athens 2004, the blue riband. On your marks, gentlemen. . . Get set, Rawling. . . .