(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)
Scandals engulfed that 4x400 relay squad in the ensuing years.
First, it was revealed in 2003 that Jerome Young, who ran in the semifinal heat of the relay for the U.S., tested positive for steroids the year before the Sydney Olympics but was allowed to compete anyway.
In 2004, The International Association of Athletics Federations ruled Young was not eligible to compete in Sydney and wanted the U.S. team stripped of its gold medal. A year later, however, the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned that decision, and the United States kept its gold.
At that time, the medal dispute became a dead issue. It seemed the case, which had a statute of limitations of eight years, would pass through the Oct. 1, 2008, deadline without another peep.
But that was only the beginning of the Americans’ problems.
Young got caught doping again and was barred from competing for life.
Calvin Harrison received a two-year suspension from track and field in 2004 for testing positive for a stimulant a year earlier. Twin brother Alvin received a four-year suspension in 2004, after he admitted to using several undetectable performance-enhancers.
While both Harrisons admitted to usage only after the Sydney Olympics, questions about that 4x400 race were being raised again.
Then, in May 2008, Antonio Pettigrew revealed the final straw.
Pettigrew, who raced in the same leg as Monye in Sydney, admitted in court he used performance-enhancing drugs before, during and after the 2000 Olympics.
Michael Johnson, the only American runner from that race not involved in a doping scandal, gave back his gold medal in July, saying his team hadn’t won the race honestly.
The story goes on, including how Monye came to live in Kansas...great read...and for the Nigerians:
For Monye’s former coach, Reynaud Alexander, the message was clear.
“Once you start using drugs for the price of success, it’s like you’re selling your soul to the devil,” Alexander said. “Because sooner or later, he’s going to collect. But now, if you want to pay that price, that’s totally up to you.”
The IOC has set no time frame for redistributing the gold medal, but Monye believes it will occur in the next two months — before the statute of limitations expires.
Hi. I wanted to drop you a quick note to express my thanks. I’ve been following your blog for a month or so and have picked up a ton of good information as well as enjoyed the way you’ve structured
Posted by: UGG Greenfield | 10/07/2011 at 02:45
Write very well,I love your content & the way that you write.I would like to read your blog every day.
Posted by: christian louboutin online | 05/17/2012 at 11:44
Well, I am so excited that I have found this in your post,I have never read such a wonderful article and I am coming back tomorrow to continue reading.
Posted by: cheap christian louboutin | 05/27/2012 at 10:09