Grand Prix with a strange ending
The current track and field season had a strange ending. The $3.9 million Grand Prix final did not produce a single significant result. And many leading track and field athletes completely ignored the competition in Qatar.

Grand Prix finals, thanks primarily to good prize money, have always been perhaps the most attractive competitions for track and field athletes. They often set world records, paid separately. But this time everything turned out differently. The organizers made a mistake by organizing the tournament immediately after the end of the Olympics. Naturally, many stars, tired after Sydney, as well as the 16-hour flight from Australia to Doha, were simply not able to show a more or less decent result. Some even refused to go to Qatar.
The composition of the tournament could have turned out to be quite modest if the International Athletics Federation (IAAF) had not set a condition for the winners of the Golden League series that ended on the eve of the Olympics: the ten-kilogram gold bars earned in it will go to the laureates only if they perform in Doha. However, the world's best sprinter Maurice Green and Moroccan stayer Hicham El-Guerrouj still preferred to part with their money in order to have a good rest.
Three other winners - Norwegian javelin thrower Trine Hattestad, American hurdler Gail Devers and Russian long jumper Tatyana Kotova - did arrive at the Grand Prix final. But Hattestad and Kotova lost, and Divers won, as she admitted, only because she really wanted to rehabilitate herself for her failure at the Olympics (an injury let her down there).
It is significant that seven Olympic champions could not win in Qatar at once - in addition to Hattestad, these are Olga Shishigina from Kazakhstan (100 meters hurdles), Russian Sergei Klyugin (high jump), American pole vaulter Nick Hysong, Elina Zvereva from Belarus (discus throwing) and Nouria Merah-Benida from Algeria (1500 meters). And all of them, justifying their defeats, naturally spoke about fatigue.
Perhaps the only one who turned out to be “iron” was Marion Jones. The phenomenal American runner, who won three gold medals in Sydney, won convincingly in Doha, although she did not receive either a precious metal bar or $200 thousand for first place in the overall standings of the IAAF Grand Prix series. As compensation, IAAF President Lamine Diack, on behalf of the organizers, even presented Jones with a special cash prize for respect for the audience, not provided for by the regulations. The Senegalese chose to keep his size a secret.

ALEXEY J-DOSPEKHOV

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 188 dated 07.10.2000, page 11

Authors:

Alexey Dospehov