Johnson cruises to one-lap double

No one, least of all Michael Johnson, believed that Sydney would witness a repeat of the miracle of Atlanta. For a start, injury had cost him the chance to defend both his titles. Limping out of the 200 metres at the US trials in July, he was left with just the 400m in Sydney in which to demonstrate his unique mastery of the art of the long sprint. That was duly accomplished yesterday, but not without an accompanying sense of realism.

"A long time ago my coach, Clyde Hart, and I sat down and decided what we wanted to do with my career," Johnson said after becoming the first man to win the title twice. "It's good to know that we can sit down today and say that we accomplished everything we set out to do, and that there wasn't anything we wanted to do that we didn't do."

This certainly sounded like the statement of a man edging closer to the brink of retirement. At the age of 33 that must indeed be the case, and the impression is heightened by the air of relaxation which nowadays envelops him. Hart, indeed, says that he has never seen the champion more at ease with himself. But all Johnson would say on the subject of the future, in answer to a question about the world championships in Brisbane next year, was to announce his intention to run in Saturday's 4x400m relay.

His time of 43.84sec yesterday would have been earth-shattering from any other athlete but was merely mundane from the champion, being more than half a second outside the world record he set in Seville last year and 0.35sec outside his Olympic record. He still hopes to become the first man to get into the 42-second bracket, but time and ambition may be running out.

As he pointed out, however, yesterday's weather in Sydney militated against record attempts. "I ran a lot more conservatively than I would have done if the conditions had been better," he said. "I changed my strategy to cope with the wind, the cold and the lane draw."

From lane six, outside his US team-mates Antonio Pettigrew and Alvin Harrison, he simply did what he had to do. "You have to take chances to break records, and I couldn't take chances today, not with Alvin running the way he's running. The pressure was on today, and I responded."

He and his fellow competitors were racing only a few minutes after Cathy Freeman's victory in the women's 400m, and the crowd was still awash with excitement. "There was a lot of energy in the stadium," Johnson observed, "and I think it made the race better."

Harrison finished second, in 44.40sec, while Gregory Haughton of Jamaica, who trains with Johnson under Hart's aegis, completed the medal line-up from the unfavoured lane eight. "I see Greg in training every day," Johnson said with an air of fatherly approval. "You can't take chances against guys like that."

There was no resentment in his admission that the spotlight which shone so fiercely upon him in Atlanta had now moved on. "I knew this would not be the same type of situation," he said. "That type of thing only happens once in your lifetime.

"It will probably always be the highlight of my career, but it's not something I would particularly want to go through again. Cathy [Freeman] and Marion [Jones], they're in the position I was in four years ago. These games are theirs."