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As on Monday, when Johnson and Perec won their respective 400s, Lewis the long jump and Allen Johnson the 110-m hurdles, Thursday evening at Olympic Stadium promised the fantastic. It was a night O'Brien had dreamed about for four years, ever since he no-heighted in the pole vault at the '92 Olympic trials. "Watching a competition you felt you could win," O'Brien said of the Barcelona Olympics, "was worse than getting picked last in gym class." This time around, O'Brien had no trouble with the pole vault. But he still had Frank Busemann, 21, of Germany on his tail as he headed across the infield for his ninth event, the javelin. For that, O'Brien got some helpful advice from none other than Dave Johnson, his Reebok-created nemesis from '92. "Dave's the javelin expert," said Dan, "so I yelled at him, 'Which jav do I use, the 85 or 90 m?' He said 90, so that's what I threw." And O'Brien threw it for a personal best 66.96 m, giving him a comfortable lead with one event to go.
When Johnson won the 200, he may have become the first man to snare the double, but he was only the second person of the evening. Perec had decided to run the 200 on a lark after her victory in the 400. Some lark. She powered past Merlene Ottey of Jamaica, whose medal was the sixth of her career--all silver or bronze. Afterward, Perec apologized to her fellow Caribbean for depriving her of her first gold. A delightful woman who models for Claude Montana and spars with the French press over her move to the States, Perec causes as much of a sensation with her revealing track outfit as she does with her speed. "In Paris," she says, "I am like Michael Jordan." In Atlanta she was like Michael Johnson.
The good Michael Johnson enjoyed watching Perec win her race, but the bad Michael didn't much like it because, "I thought it might psyche up Ato Boldon, who trains with her." But when the gun went off, there was nobody else in the race with Johnson. He could have gone even faster had he not stumbled at the start, or felt a twinge in his right hamstring at the end--a pull that kept from a third gold medal in the 4 x 400 relay on Saturday night.
Even after he crossed the finish line, Johnson was still in the danger zone, bellowing over his record and pulling at his unitard. But then he approached Fredericks, who had beaten him in the 200 just a few weeks ago, and the aggression melted away. Johnson smiled warmly and returned to his normal, better self. In the press conference, he was asked how it felt to go faster than any man had ever gone before--9.2 sec. in the last 100 m. "It was like the first time I went down the hill at the end of our street in the go-cart my father made for me," said Johnson. "If you want to know what that's like, get yourself a go-cart."
There was a wonderful tableau at the end of Thursday evening when Johnson beamed on the center medal platform as O'Brien, who had just completed his final event, the 1,500 m, ran a victory lap with the American flag. There they were, two men robbed by fate in '92, covered in the cheers of 80,000. When it came time for O'Brien to take the stand, he remembered he had left his warm-up suit behind. So he borrowed the suit of another man of similar height and weight. That's how Michael Johnson's track suit pulled its own double Thursday night.