SEVILLE, AUGUST 30: The agony of sprint queen Marion Jones lying postrate on the track and the ecstasy of Michael Johnson as he ran the greatest 400 metres in history seared their imprint on the seventh World Athletics Championships which ended here last night. What risked being a second rate show, with some of the sport's biggest names missing through injury or drug charges, defied critics and the sweltering Spanish sun and brought a smile to the face of IAAF President Primo Nebiolo.For 23-year-old Jones the championship began with the 100m gold and ended when she was wheeled away from the 200m track on a stretcher, before flying home, her season in tatters. It was a bitter blow for the sport, with Jones seen as the epitome of all that is good about track and field. A winning smile to go with her winning ways.For Johnson, who admits he does not have much more than another 12 months in him, his legend was simply enhanced as he destroyed the 11-year-old 400m record of Butch Reynolds to add to his 200mWorld record, set at the Atlanta Olympics. He also surpassed Carl Lewis' record eight championship golds by collecting his ninth when he led the 4X400m relay team to victory in the final race of the Worlds.The world came face to face with a new phenomenon when Maurice Greene became the first man to win both the 100m And 200m titles. The Kansas Comet has renamed himself `The Phenomenon' and when he collected a third gold by anchoring the 4X100 relay team he had a point.The pole vault got a new world champion for the first time in 16 years as Maksim Tarasov finally succeeded to the throne which Sergei Bubka has occupied since the first championships in Helsinki in 1983. Among other firsts, China won its first and only medals of the championships when Liu Hongyu and Wang Yan finished first and second in the women's 20-kilometre walk. Wang thus became the first ever champion at the event, which has replaced the women's 10km walk.
