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Four years is a long time
Posted: Tuesday May 09, 2000 02:22 PM
When I was asked to write and put my voice to CNN's newest Olympic Update, it got me thinking. Always a dangerous thing. You may be familiar with these updates. They are a sponsored minute of Olympic info, covering all kinds of sports, athletes and background topics. We did them before the Atlanta Games and will do them again in the build-up to Sydney. Indeed, that was the first thing to hit me. The Olympics here in CNN's home city finished almost four years ago, but to me it seems like just yesterday that Atlanta was the focal point of the sports world. It is said that time flying by is a sign of getting older. But how can it be that I can still remember the great Michael Johnson flying by on that Olympic track like it was yesterday? Yet four years is a long time my friends. In that spell, we've seen hundreds of Olympians have a crack at two track and field World Championships, witnessed four Champions League football campaigns and four Super Bowl Champions, we've seen Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky and John Elway retire, President Clinton re-elected and then scandalously impeached, the rise and (at least in the USA) fall of the Spice Girls and the arrival of a new century, if not strictly a new Millennium (depending which lobby you listen to). And I'm just skimming the surface here. Am I the only one, or do major events like Olympics and World Cups come round more quickly in one's mind than in reality ? Are we not all pinching ourselves in disbelief that Sydney is just around the corner ? Wasn't that Atlanta we just passed a block back that way? That was the second thing to hit me. Sydney is looming. I should really start thinking more about the land down under. Time to begin getting my head around the massive array of events and would-be medalists.
But as my Olympic Update concerned Michael Johnson (thus his earlier mention), my thoughts didn't wander much farther than this bolt of Texas lightning. It helped, I suppose, that I'd recently talked to him. Remember how he shattered, neigh destroyed, the 200-meter world record in winning Olympic gold in 1996? And how he won the 400 as well to win an unprecedented Olympic double? All in those golden shoes to boot. Now he's preparing to do it all over again. The four or so years in between have been kind to him. Yes, he's had a few injury setbacks. But by and large, Johnson can't complain with more World Championship gold and the long-desired 400-meter world record, not to mention untold riches. Regardless of what happens in Sydney, he will go down as one of the sport's all-time legends. But he told me in that recent interview that he likes to collect "firsts" -- and isn't about to stop now. He was the first athlete to win gold over 200 and 400 meters at the same World Championship. He was the first to do the same double at the Olympics. He has gone faster than any other human over 200 and 400. Both astonishing firsts. Now Johnson says he wants to be the first man to successfully defend both the 200 and 400 meter Olympic golds. Should he succeed, it could be a record that will stand for an age. Few athletes dominate two events like Johnson. And if he can do that -- and raise his athletic feats to an even greater unworldly level -- maybe Michael can be the one to kindly explain to me where the last four years went.
Phil Jones is a co-host of "World Sport," the international sports show that airs live on CNN/Sports Illustrated and CNN International.
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