(Ed Note: Our former intern Jesse Temple contributed this great piece to the Lawrence (Kansas) Journal-World)
The 2000 Sydney Olympics featured great track athletes including Marion Jones and Michael Johnson. Johnson's incredible athletic ability won medals for the US, cruising for the gold in the 4x400M relay with Antonio Pettigew, Jerome Young, and the Harrison twins. Evan as there were wings on their feet, there were and chemicals in their veins...subsequently Nigeria will be known as the 2000 Sydney Olympics men's 400x4 gold medal winners.
The original silver medal in that race went to the Nigerians, a relatively unknown team with Jude Monye running a leg. Here is his story:
The first thing visitors notice inside Jude Monye’s apartment is the large flat-screen TV resting on a shelf in the living room.
It’s not the TV itself that is so intriguing, but rather Monye’s
reaction to what is playing on-screen, seemingly in a continuous loop.
It’s 2 p.m. on a scorching-hot August afternoon in Lawrence, and
Monye has folded his 6-foot-3 frame into a sofa chair to watch the
Olympic track races...
And as you watch the races with him, you get the feeling that even
if these weren’t the Olympics, even if these races were taking place at
the Kansas Relays, Monye still would be watching. He tells you as much.
“I just love track,” Monye says...
Jude Monye just wanted to run. He hadn’t even heard of the Olympics
when he discovered his talent at 7 years old. His friends would dash
across the dirt roads in Benin City, Nigeria, running until their
little legs couldn’t take it anymore. Nobody in town could touch Monye
in the sprints, though.
“Everybody would go look for somebody from the next street or block,” Monye said. “And I would beat everybody.”
He watched the great American sprinter Carl Lewis win four gold
medals in the 1984 Olympics. Monye was 9 and spending the summer in
Lagos with his Uncle Susu, a professor at the University of Lagos.
Cut to Sydney:
Nigeria’s runners qualified easily for the Sydney Olympics in the
4x400 relay. They were fast. Maybe the fastest relay team in the
history of Nigeria. They won their semifinal heat in Sydney and bounded
into the final with great confidence.
The finals were set. Nigeria would be in lane four, with the heavily
favored United States team of Alvin Harrison, Antonio Pettigrew, Calvin
Harrison and Michael Johnson in lane five. Monye would run the second
leg of the relay, going up against Pettigrew. Nigeria’s team consisted
of Clement Chukwu, Monye, team-leader Sunday Bada and Enefiok
Udo-Obong, who would run the final leg.
Monye said the mood during the warm-up was strangely calm. Chukwu,
Monye and Bada all figured this might be their last Olympic race ever,
and they wanted to go out on top.
“I’ve never seen a group of guys be so determined to do something,”
Monye said. “When I saw the four of us just playing around, so relaxed,
in my mind I knew something special was going to happen.”
When Chukwu handed the baton to Monye for the second leg, though,
Nigeria stood in fifth place. The U.S. already had made up ground on
the outer lanes and took over first.
Monye broke down to lane one at the beginning of the back
straightaway, slowly but surely closing the gap on fourth place.
Pettigrew didn’t give any ground and maintained the lead for the U.S.
In Monye’s final meters, he had come nearly even with both third-place
Jamaica and second-place Bahamas as he handed off to Bada. But when
Bada passed the baton on to Udo-Obong for the final 400 meters, a medal
seemed out of reach. Michael Johnson was on his way to pummeling the
competition. Jamaica’s Danny McFarlane — the same person Monye watched
on TV in Beijing — had taken over second, and Bahamas’ Chris Brown held
third place.
Monye’s mother, Priscilla Egbe, watched breathlessly back home in Nigeria as the stretch run unfolded.
“I saw that Nigeria was in fourth place,” said Egbe, who is staying
with her son in Lawrence. “By my screen, I knelt down. I said, ‘God, I
want them to get a medal. Let them take third at least. I don’t want
them to be the last loser and finish the race in fourth.’”
And just like that, her prayers were answered.
Udo-Obong passed Brown two seconds before the finish line. Then, he
blew by McFarlane at the line, dipping his head across one-tenth of a
second faster.
Nigeria had captured a silver medal.
All four Nigerians embraced, joyously celebrating the
accomplishment. They had finished the race in 2:58.68, a full two
seconds behind the U.S., but good enough for the best time any African
country ever had run.
“We all ran the race of our lives,” Monye said.
The Nigerians ran the race of their lives, and 8 years later were rewarded with the honor of their lives: the gold.
(more on why after the BALCO jump)
The games of the 29th Olympiad have just concluded, and what a magnificent spectacle they were! An abundance of world records, a super medal haul and the incredible performance of our athletes, especially Usain Bolt, made these Olympics extra special for Jamaica.
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