Prodigious Wariner Chases, And May Well Catch, Mentor

OSAKA, Japan, Aug. 27 -- U.S. Coach Clyde Hart vividly remembers the perplexing exchange he had with prize pupil Jeremy Wariner just minutes after Wariner's stunning Olympic gold medal victory at the 2004 Summer Games. As much as Hart learned about Wariner during the 400-meter race, watching him put forth a cool performance as an unheralded 20-year-old collegian at Baylor, Hart learned even more after.

As Wariner, who Tuesday morning began his defense of the world title in the 400 at the 11th IAAF world track and field championships, jogged off the track at the Olympics, Hart met him with a smile.

"The first thing he said was, 'Coach, I just got the school record,' " Hart recalled Monday.

"I said, 'Jeremy, you just got a gold medal!' "

"He said, 'Yeah, but I got Michael's school record.' "

Wariner was referring to the legendary U.S. sprinter Michael Johnson, the nine-time world champion who also attended Baylor, trained under Hart, and has long provided the growing chart Wariner measures himself against.

Now, with no athlete in this world championship field considered in Wariner's class -- "I'm not going to get beat unless I don't run my race," Wariner declared flatly last week -- Wariner has his eyes trained again on Johnson, who retired after the 2000 Summer Games. He believes he is ready to take down Johnson's hallowed, eight-year-old world record of 43.18 seconds. He set a personal best three weeks ago in Stockholm of 43.50.

Though Johnson's mark was thought virtually untouchable before Wariner came along, the thinking has changed, and there are at least two people certain Wariner can get it, and soon -- possibly as early as Wednesday's semifinal or Thursday's final.

"I told him, 'You're in the ballpark,' " Hart said. "And he's not just in the bleachers of the ballpark, he's up to bat right now."

Just over a week ago, Hart searched through boxes in his office and located the workout diary he kept for Johnson before he set the world record in 1999. Recognizing that Wariner's execution of recent drills had improved dramatically, Hart wanted to compare the times to the usual standard. The yellowed notations affirmed the quality of Wariner's work: his repeats of 350 and 200 sprints separated by short rest periods were virtually identical to Johnson's times before he set the world record at the world championships in Seville, Spain.

"Hart told me, 'This is what he was doing when he broke it; you're basically right there,' " Wariner said last week during a conference call from his training home in Waco, Tex. "With everything falling into place, there's a chance we could go get it.

"There's no telling what I'll be able to do at the world championships."

Led by Wariner, the U.S. team is so strong many expect the same medal sweep that marked the Olympic 400, albeit with different characters. Both Angelo Taylor and LaShawn Merritt have run close to 44-flat -- precisely what Wariner ran three years ago at the Athens Games. He's come a long way since, boosting his strength in the weight room and conquering more challenging workouts, Hart said.

To drive home Wariner's proximity to the world record during training this week, Hart handed Wariner a stopwatch and told him to click it twice, trying to measure .32 of a second. That's the difference between Wariner's personal-best time, which he clocked Aug. 7, and Johnson's world best.

The point was made. One-third of a second isn't much.

"Jeremy is self-driven, but Michael gives him motivation," Hart said. "A lot of people out there are awed at Michael's record, but Jeremy has been going for that since the beginning."

Wariner, Hart emphasizes, has plenty of respect for Johnson, now an agent and television commentator who along with Deon Minor has represented Wariner since he turned pro the day after the 2004 Summer Games. The two talk on the phone frequently (Johnson, however, is in London broadcasting this event for the BBC) and Wariner relies on him for advice. He knows Johnson, who owns nine of the top 13 performances ever in the 400, dwarfs him in the history books. (Johnson and former world record holder Butch Reynolds are the only two men who have run faster than Wariner in the 400.)

Johnson, who has won five Olympic medals, spent the early part of his 15-year career dominating the 200, an event Wariner has dabbled in but not mastered. Wariner, though, has been far more precocious in the 400 than Johnson ever was. He is chasing at 23 what his mentor sought at 31.

"He's the one with the target on his back," Hart said. "I think he enjoys that. He's believed from day one he could get down to that record. He's going to give it his best shot from here on out."