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Macrozonaris raises eyebrows at trials
VICTORIA (CP) -- The night Donovan Bailey won his Olympic gold medal, 15-year-old Nicolas Macrozonaris was so excited he took a measuring tape and marked off 100 meters on a street near his Montreal home.Living on a cul-de-sac, his first challenge was finding a straight street.
Now 19, with dark eyes and an engaging smile, Macrozonaris dropped jaws at the Canadian track and field championships by running a blistering time of 10.19 seconds in a 100-metre preliminary race, earning himself a ticket to the Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia.
"I'm pinching my ear to see if it's a dream," Macrozonaris said Sunday as the championships, which also serve as an Olympic trials, ended.
"It's not a dream. It's a reality."
Bruny Surin won Saturday's 100-metres in a wind-aided time of 10.05 seconds, his best clocking of the season. Macrozonaris finished fourth in the final but his earlier time bettered the mark of 10:23 seconds set as a qualifying time by the Canadian Olympic Association.
"In the final I was a bit dazed. I didn't know what I was doing," said Macrozonaris, who didn't begin competitive running until three years ago.
"I can do even better."
Macrozonaris has caused the biggest stir in Canadian track since Surin won an unexpected bronze medal at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in New Zealand. He's already being touted as the future of Canadian sprinting.
"As long as he keeps his two feet on the ground, he's going to be a great hope for Canada," said Surin.
Bailey also was impressed.
"He's a great kid with a great attitude," said the double Olympic gold medallist, who missed the Canadian championships with a hamstring injury but expects to compete in Sydney.
"He's also a big kid with big long strides."
Macrozonaris shrugged when asked about the expectations being heaped on his slender shoulders.
"There's a lot of runners out there. We'll wait and see," he said.
Told that Bailey had already dubbed him 'Nicky M', Macrozonaris rolled the nickname around in his head a minute.
"Nicky M. OK," he decided.
Surin, Bailey and Macrozonaris are the only three sprinters who have bettered the COA standard for Sydney, but he still must be officially selected to the team which will be announced Tuesday.
"I know that I run fast and I should be part of the team," he said.
"I've proven to everyone I can run fast."
Macrozonaris's emergence has left national track coach Brent MacFarlane with a pleasant dilemma. He must decide who will join Surin and Bailey on the defending Olympic champion 4x100-meter relay team.
Calgary's Brad McCuaig thought he'd earned a ticket to the Games when he ran 10.18 in Saturday's final, but that was erased because of the wind. Pierre Browne, 20, of Toronto, has run 10.24 this year while McCuaig ran 10.29 in the heats.
Glenroy Gilbert, a member of the relay team that won gold at the 1997 world championships and 1996 Olympics, was clocked at 10.30 in the heats.
Surin suffered a slight tear of his adductor muscle in Saturday's race. He called the injury minor but his coach, Dan Pfaff, was more concerned.
"He's real bad," said Pfaff.
Macrozonaris decided not to tempt fate and didn't race in Sunday's 200 metres.
"I didn't want to take any risk for injury," he said.
"I proved what I have to prove. I reached my goals."
Brown, who already had a place on the Olympic team, won the 200 in a time of 20.58.
Karlene Haughton, of Brampton, Ont., who also is Olympic bound, won the 400-metre hurdles in 57.20.
Robin Lyons, of Edmonton, set a meet record in women's hammer throw with a toss of 62.70 metres. She will join Michelle Fournier of Pierrefonds, Que., who is also going to Sydney.
Toronto's Arturo Huerta, who already has earned a ticket to Sydney, won the men's 20-kilometre walk in 1:21:24 while Janice McCaffrey of Calgary took the women's race in 1:34:50.00.
On Saturday, Mark Boswell of Brampton, Ont., won the Canadian high-jump title with a leap of 2.31 metres, edging teammate and friend Kwaku Boateng of Montreal, who cleared 2.28 metres.
John Thresher, president of Athletics Canada, predicted the track team could win up to six medals at Sydney.
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