The Electronic Telegraph Sunday 15 July 2001 DWAIN CHAMBERS wrote another piece of sprinting history yesterday and in the process reasserted his position as the fastest man in Britain. There were slings and arrows and young pretenders aplenty to throw him off course yesterday but he is becoming a polished and professional practitioner of his art and he reinforced further the impression that he has serious speed with which he can now match up against the best in the world. Chambers won the Norwich Union World Trials and AAAs Championships in Birmingham in some style, one arm aloft, the outrageously-gifted Mark Lewis-Francis a metre behind him and, even slowing down, recording an impressive 10.01 seconds. No Briton has ever gone faster on home turf. Linford Christie once did 9.91sec but with the use of an excessive tail wind; his fastest legal time at home was 10.04sec. The most outstanding aspect of his victory was the circumstances that he managed to overcome. The organisation of the event was an utter shambles, there was a mix-up with the start-lists and the result was that the moment the BBC tuned in live, there was a 25-minute delay while the 100m sprinters awaited their semi-final start. When they had eventually got under way, Chambers finished clutching a hamstring and he then had to endure a false-start before pulling away to victory in the final. Other men - like European champion Darren Campbell - were thrown by all this, but Chambers simply exhibited class. Poor Campbell was faultless, simply the victim of outrageous circumstance. He has been suffering from a leg injury and he thus had it strapped for the semi-final intending the strapping to be on for only 10 minutes. With the delay, the strapping was on instead for 40 minutes, the blood flow was restricted and, after finishing sixth in the final, he was left wondering whether it might have been different. Campbell's preference this year is for the 200m but he had to withdraw from the heats last night. Chambers, Malcolm and Marlon Devonish then all proceeded to qualify in excellent shape which appears to present the selectors with an enviable problem. Do they pick Campbell, the Olympic silver medallist, ahead of one of these three? Any crowing over Chambers' achievements are, however, given real perspective alongside the performance of the American Tim Montgomery in Oslo on Friday night. Montgomery burst out of the shadows of the world's fastest men with a time of 9.84sec and promised afterwards that this wasn't just a one-off miracle performance out of nowhere and that there are greater deeds, world records and Maurice Greene's scalp still to come. Such claims - delivered calmly and without hype - are absolutely astonishing. "We've been predicting this," he said. In fact they've been expecting even better. "All year we've been predicting 9.75sec. I ran well at the American trials last month and I was a bit tired after that. We felt it would take about 10 races to hit my potential and that's what has just happened." The "we" he is referring to is himself and Trevor Graham, his new coach. "Everything's always been there," he said, "but I was previously with my old college coach and a college coach can only take you so far." The astounding leaps and bounds which he has just taken show Chambers how far he has yet to come. It had seemed that the likes of Chambers and Lewis-Francis were making ground on the world's best, but Montgomery has suddenly raised the bar. "Montgomery's time shocked me," said Chambers after his victory. "But I've already beaten him this season. If he can do it, I can too." While Chambers marches on, Kelly Holmes continues to corner the market for emotional comebacks. Last year, after three seasons in and out of injury crises, she came back to win Olympic bronze. With glandular fever and chronic fatigue syndrome ruining her season's preparations this time, it again seemed that the summer had left her behind. So bad has she been that on Friday, before her semi-final, she wasn't even sure whether she would run so she got Andy Graffin, the 1500m runner, to toss a coin to make up her mind. She will be thanking him for telling her to compete, because she won the 800m yesterday in 2min 02.61sec and now has three weeks before Edmonton to rescue another desperate world challenge. "That race has given me a lot of confidence," she said afterwards, "because I haven't been feeling too well recently." One other very impressive qualifier yesterday for the World Championships was Janine Whitlock in the pole vault. The 27-year-old from Merseyside has been jumping well this year and yesterday booked her place in Edmonton with a new British record of 4.40 metres. Whitlock has been Britain's outstanding pole vaulter for a number of years; yesterday was the 33rd time she has broken a British record. Not many of these, though, can have been as rewarding as yesterday's. The prize for breaking a British record in these championships is a Rover 25 Gti. Eamonn Condon www.RunnersGoal.com
