Veteran stars set to dominate C'wealth athletics

Ian Thorpe is not the only sports superstar at the Commonwealth Games, except that the other has retired and wouldn't be able to compete anyway.

Michael Johnson, winner of five Olympic and nine World Championship golds for the United States at 200 and 400 meters, is at Manchester to give his expert view on the athletics competition for host broadcaster the British Broadcasting Corporation.

It's a good job he's here because these games are short of really big stars.

Thorpe, at age 19 probably the highest profile swimmer since Mark Spitz who won seven golds at the Munich Olympics, is attempting to match that "mark" here while defend four titles at the same time.

Grant Hackett, Olympic, world and Commonwealth champion as well as world record holder at 1,500m, defends one of his titles too.

Among the track stars, world record holder Colin Jackson is biddng for his third Commonwealth Games gold in the 110 hurdles while Jonathan Edwards, Olympic and world champion and world record holder in the triple jump, bids to win his first Commonwealth title after being runner-up twice.

Frankie Fredericks, 200 meters gold medalist for Namibia eight years ago at Victoria, British Columbia, and silver medalist at 100 at Kuala Kumpur in 1998, returns once more and is expected to run both.

Maria Mutola of Mozambique is back to defend her 800 metres title, London Marathon winner Paula Radcliffe is favorite for the 5,000 metres and the men's pole vault looks like a good battle between world champion Dmitry Markov of Australia and South Africa's Okkert Brits who have both cleared 6.00 metres.

Cathy Freeman, who lit the torch at the Sydney Olympics and then won the 400 meters, is running only the 4x400 relay and Canada's Bruny Surin, just turned 35 and a five-time finalist at the Worlds, runs in the 4x100.

Ato Boldon of Trinidad and Tobago is short on fitness and form and isn't here to defend his 100 metre title. Olympic heptathlon champion Denise Lewis is still not back to competition three months after giving birth to a baby girl while sprinter Merlene Ottey, who won two medals for Jamaica back in 1982, now competes for Slovenia which is not a Commonwealth country.

Even though he finished competing 11 months ago at the Goodwill Games, 34-year-old Johnson appears in good enough shape to continue winning 200 and 400m races and wouldn't have that much opposition here, at least in the 400 meters.

He has no intention of putting the spikes back on, however.

"When you are a professional athlete you have the opportunity to do what you love and work every day to get better," he said two days before the start of the Games.