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Green, Jones prove too good

Maurice Greene showed why he's the world fastest human, winning even with a poor start. Marion Jones showed that even a knee injury can't slow her.

Greene and Jones capped the US Outdoor Atheltics Championships by winning the men's and women's 200-metre dashes yesterday.

Greene, capitalising on the absence of injured world record-holder Michael Johnson, sped to victory in a wind-aided 19.93 seconds, beating national indoor champion Rohsaan Griffin by .05 seconds.

It wasn't an ordinary Greene race. He stumbled out of the blocks and had to put his left hand on the track to maintain his balance. He finally took the lead with 80 metres remaining and cruised to the finish.

While Greene didn't come close to Johnson's world record of 19.32 or his personal best of 19.86, even with an aiding wind of 2.3 metres per second, he showed he was the best on this day.

Earlier this month, Greene set the world record for 100 metres of 9.79.

"The start of my race was shaky, but I recovered well and ran the best race I could today. It was a stumble out of the blocks. I didn't get enough block clearance.''

Jones led all the way in winning in 22.10. Like Greene, it was not close to her best of 21.62 and far off the World record of 21.34, but Jones was superior to the rest of the field.

She led coming off the curve and was not seriously challenged.

Two weeks ago, Jones sprained her right knee while long-jumping, and has been nursing the injury since, though she did not use that as an excuse on Friday night when she was upset in the long jump.

"It's the best it's felt,'' Jones said of her knee.

There were several other outstanding performances on the final programme of the four-day championships that was the qualifying meet for the World Championships at Seville, Spain, in August.

Jeff Hartwig broke his American record in the pole vault, soaring 6.02 metres.

John Godina uncorked the best shot put in the world in two years, 22.02 (72-3), smashing the 15-year-old Hayward field record.

Tisha Waller shattered meet and venue records in winning the women's high jump at 1.99 (6-6 1-4) and Gail Devers won the women's 100 hurdles in a wind-aided 12.54 seconds.

AP