At the 1996 Olympic Games, Marie-Jose Perec went where no one had gone before.
With her thrilling victory over Cathy Freeman in Atlanta, Perec became the first athlete to retain the Olympic 400m title. Her 48.25 that day is officially the third fastest time in history, but it is widely held that it should be the women’s 400m world record, for it is unaccompanied by the whiff of doping. “I would agree with that,” she says, “without creating any problems with anyone.”
Three days later, she won the 200m title, joining the supremely rare group of athletes to have performed a ‘double’ on the track. Perec is now in Bengaluru as the Event Ambassador for the TCS World 10K.
On Friday, the Guadeloupe-born French sprinter spoke of her triple Olympic success, doping, and her controversial exit from the Sydney Games of 2000.
Excerpts:
Favourite medal: The 200m gold in Atlanta. It was not my speciality; I’m more a 400m runner. A lot of people thought it was impossible for me. When I look back on it, sometimes I feel: “This wasn’t true. This can’t be me.” It was incredible. Later, I told my coach (John Smith): “The last 50m was so easy that I thought I was walking or running on water.” He started to laugh. It was a magic moment.
The 400m final in Atlanta: It’s difficult to win gold medals in the same event in successive Olympic Games. But I was so well prepared that when I started that race I knew I would win. It may seem overconfident to think or say that but that day, that’s the way I felt. “This race is done,” I thought. I didn’t even worry about it.
The lead-up: The preparation for this double was very difficult. I was somewhat stressed. I took a lipstick and I wrote on my mirror the time I wanted to do (48s). I knew that if I did 48 no one could get there. Every morning when I went to brush my teeth, I saw this time. It made me even more scared but it made me do the right thing every day. Even months before, when I woke up in the morning, I had butterflies in my stomach. When you want to achieve something, you live with it, you dream of it. It was with me, it was in my skin.
Training for 1996: I was the only woman in that training group (in California). My coach (John Smith) did not want to train women. He said: “Women bring too many problems. I don’t want any headaches.” But I said: “I will do better than all the men you have in your team.” He accepted me. The first day, they were all doing 300m runs. My coach asked me to do 38 or 37.5 and I ran 35. The guys were supposed to run 34. If you’re a guy and a woman is running 35, what do you do? After a few weeks, these guys started respecting me. They knew I was there just like them, to achieve a dream, not to talk. I needed this hard competition.
Sydney 2000: (Perec alleged that she was threatened by a man at her hotel and left the Games before her showdown with Freeman in the 400m.) It was so painful. I don’t even want to talk about it. The word difficult is not enough to explain what I lived through. What was so sad was that I found no one around me to help me. For many years it really hurt me.
Doping hurting the sport’s image? I don’t see it this way. If someone has tested positive it is because people in doping control are doing their jobs. Many sports don’t want bad news so they don’t even do these many dope tests. In athletics, we are catching people. My parents would have killed me if I had done something like that. I would have never have shamed my family that way.
Training with Marita Koch’s coach in East Germany: You don’t know how much I learned with Wolfgang Meier! People did not understand at that time why I went there. These people (East Germans) did not only use drugs; they had all the great coaches. When I decided to leave California, where it is sunny, hot and beautiful, and go to train in Rostock, where it was sometimes even minus 18, people could not understand. But I did some training I didn’t think my body was capable of.
