© Stade de France ®
Macary, Zublena et Regembal
Costantini - Architects
ADAGP - Paris - 2002
|
|
COMPETITION  RETRO |
 Athens 1997 – A SPRINT QUEEN IS BORN
Paris 2003 Saint-Denis
The 6th World Championships in Athletics were marked by the emergence of a new star. Marion Jones swapped the basketball court for the athletics arena to win double gold in the 100m and 4x100m.
 |
| Vandystadt |
Marion Jones lit up those long summer nights in Athens. The girl who had been shooting hoops for a living just a few months before shot to stardom with a stunning performance in the100 metres.
An NCAA title instead of the Barcelona Olympics
Yet it could have been so different; for many years it had appeared as though the awesomely gifted girl from California would be lost to track and field. Despite earning a berth in the US 4x100m relay squad for the Barcelona Olympics at the age of 16, Jones chose to turn down the opportunity to concentrate on a burgeoning basketball career. Not without success either, for by 1993 she was voted California Player of the Year (Division I) with a 22.8 point average. An NCAA title with North Carolina then followed and she was only denied a trip to the World University Championships in 1996 because of injury.
The call of the track
It would be three years before she would hear the call of the track again. Freshly graduated from a communication and journalism school, she decided to return to her first love – sprinting. Under the guidance of future husband CJ Hunter, she vowed she would become the fastest woman on the planet. Trevor Graham was called in to help her fine-tune her technique in 1997. “ Trevor changed little things, like the angle of my blocks or the way I carried one arm, and I improved immediately ,” she explained.
Hitting top speed
Just two months after bringing her short-lived basketball career to an end, Jones was crowned US 100m champion in Indianapolis after clocking the fifth fastest time in history (10.76). Then, almost as an afterthought, she picked up the long jump gold for good measure. Two months later, she was in Athens, where she bagged another pair of even more prestigious golds. First in the World Championship 100m, ahead of Zhanna Tamopolskaya-Pintusevich in a time of 10.83, and then in the relay, alongside Gaines, Miller and Devers. Marion Jones had arrived – big time.
|
|
|
|
