<\/p>\n
I was a reigning world champion but I was really just coming into my own. I\u2019d gone to the World Championships in Athens in 1997 and won but I was still learning a lot about my race pattern and I really thought I could work on perfecting everything. That\u2019s all I was really thinking of: perfecting the race. It wasn\u2019t about how to get a whole lot faster.<\/span><\/p>\n When I was going to Athens for the meet, I wasn\u2019t even supposed to run the 100m. I was going to go there and run a 200m but then, when I got there and I saw who was in the 100m, I was like: \u201cMan, something is about to happen. I don\u2019t know what it is, but I want to be a part of it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So I called my manager Emanuel Hudson and told him: \u201cI don\u2019t care what you have to do, but you have to get me in this 100m race.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The night before he called me and said: \u201cI got you in, but you\u2019re only going to run one race [no preliminary heat] while everybody else is going to run two.\u201d I didn\u2019t care.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When we got to the track, everybody was warming up. I was sitting down on the track watching the prelim heats, knowing only seven people were going to make it through since they were leaving the lane open in the final for me.<\/p>\n So that let me prepare. I just warmed up nice and easy, taking my time, winding down and just trying to perfect the race. When I ran in Athens to take gold at the World Championships, it was a little rocky as a race \u2013 it wasn\u2019t as smooth as it could have been. I told myself: \u201cLet\u2019s make this a lot smoother this time. Because I know hands down what I\u2019m doing is better than I did in the years before.\u201d<\/p>\n The more confident you are, the better. Even when I\u2019m coaching someone now, especially when I\u2019m starting to work with them, and they\u2019re trying to hurry and rush things and asking why they\u2019re not getting it, I tell them the more confidence you get in yourself, the more confidence you\u2019ll have in your race pattern \u2013 and the more patience that you can have so you won\u2019t rush things so much.<\/p>\n When you start realising that, and stop caring about what or who\u2019s around you, or anything else, that\u2019s when everything starts flourishing for you. That\u2019s what it was with me. I could be more patient. I wasn\u2019t rushing my movements. I didn\u2019t feel like I had to hurry up to get there. I let the process unfold by itself to run smoothly and then everything happened on its own. That\u2019s because of the confidence you have within yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n Ato Boldon was my training partner. The year before, all we talked about was breaking the world record and we didn\u2019t even get close to it. So then I just said: \u201cYou know what? I\u2019m not even going to talk about it anymore.\u201d I was just going to run the best race possible and not think about times. Once I started that, that\u2019s when the times really started becoming faster.<\/p>\n Ato Boldon and Maurice Greene (Getty)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Ato was probably my toughest competitor. We worked together almost every day so I knew I had to be a little bit more patient than him. He would think about everything, even during the race, whereas I would feel my way through it. I wasn\u2019t worried about anything else.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n My way worked for me, his way worked for him and even though he was leading for most of that race, I was a lot more patient. That made me a lot stronger at the end of the races, where I was able to overcome him, and it got me to the world record that night.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t even really see the clock when I finished until Ato came up to me and screamed: \u201cLook, look, look!\u201d My reaction was that finally I\u2019d done something that I\u2019d been saying I wanted to do for so long. I had finally done it.<\/p>\n And then, quickly, I thought: \u201cI want to go faster. I want to do more.\u201d That was just my way of thinking and how I did things. An hour later, I ran the 200m and Ato beat me. I\u2019d exerted a lot of energy, but we trained for that, to run two races at the top of our speed.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Ato Boldon \u2013 ask the athlete<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I think that night played into my getting the Olympic gold a year later in Sydney. I wasn\u2019t worried about anyone else or anything else but obviously my confidence was a lot higher, knowing what I was capable of.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve always maintained that I never ran the perfect race and that\u2019s what I was always wanting to do. If I had been able to finish the perfect race, who knows what that time would have been?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00bb <\/b><\/span>As told to\u00a0Mark\u00a0Woods<\/em><\/p>\n \u00bb <\/b>This article originally appeared in the February 2023 issue of AW magazine, which you can read here<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n