Ever the sprinter

No such scenes greeted the news of Flo-Jo8217;s death last Monday. Was it because the feelings it generated lay too deep for tears? The athlete of the beloved acronym had, of course, no history of any serious disease till she was reported to have died of a seizure.

Was not there, however, a widely shared feeling that she had suffered for too, too long from a wound to her sporting pride? One that witch-doctors of the sport establishment went out of their way to keep unhealed?

Sporting idols have seldom lost in popular sympathy after testing positive in dope tests. It is, perhaps, not only the Canadian public that feels the ban imposed on Ben Johnson was too harsh a punishment. It is not only Argentinians who are only too willing to forget Diego Maradona8217;s drug abuse and remember, instead, his footballing genius.

And, teenage tennis star Jennifer Capriati8217;s fall into the drug trap was seen more as a tragedy than as an unpardonable transgression. Flo-Jo8217;s has been a crueler lot for her not falling in this category.

She, by all accounts, cleared the doping test, but could not stop a campaign of calumny. Her detractors found the clinical evidence an inadequate challenge to their infamous charge that she used performance-enhancing drugs. They did not prove their point, of course, but succeeded in taking her off the tracks she loved and trod since 1983 after the Seoul Olympics. Her retirement announced in 1989 ended a career of achievements that mediocrity could attribute only to miracle potions.

It has all been reported before but no fan of hers will mind yet another recapitulation of Flo-Jo8217;s main accomplishments. She still holds the women8217;s world records in her favourite 100 and 200-metre events. She won three gold medals in the 1988 Olympics 100 metres, 200 metres, and 4215;100 relay, and consequently the US Sportswoman of the Year award. And, fresh in her admirers8217; memory is the final flicker of the genius in a world event almost simultaneously with our own P.T. Usha, four years younger, staging an athletic comeback in the Asian championships in Fukuoka.

The most memorable of her moments, however, was when she clocked a stunning 10.49 seconds in the 100-metre heats for the 1988 Olympics in Indianapolis. The feat was greeted with applause as well as animosity. An obit recalls that, on the gusty day she ran, the wind gauge read no wind at all and notes that even now critics want her effort to be recorded as wind-aided.

Those who watched her run from then on, up the pinnacle of glory, would prefer to remember her wind-swept hair, long and curly. Flo-Jo was not all about pace, she was also a personality. As notable as her timing was her flamboyant running suit as were her extra-long, painted fingernails that added to the feline grace of her athletics. She may have ruffled no feathers, but she was perhaps a rebel in the very way she ran.

To most Indians, Sachin Tendulkar is more a symbol of national pride than Pokharan. So, to common Americans, must Flo-Jo be more than either Clinton or his muck-raking foes. That, at any rate, will be the hope of her admirers in the rest of the world.