News19 Feb 1999


Fredericks aims for elusive Olympic gold medal

FacebookTwitterEmail

Frankie Fredericks after winning the 200m at the 1998 IAAF World Cup in Johannesburg (© Getty Images)

Frankie Fredericks believes he must halve his workload if he is to win an elusive Olympic gold medal. The four-time Olympic silver medallist aims to go one better at next year's Sydney Olympics and said Friday he would cut either the 100m or 200m to concentrate on winning an elusive gold.

"I want to win a gold medal at the Olympics - that's the main goal, everything else will be geared toward that goal," he said after training for Saturday's IAAF athletics meeting here at the brand new Olympic stadium. "What I'm going to run at the Olympics is actually up in the air. I want to win a gold medal and I will pick one race that I feel I have the best chance to win."

After taking the silver in both the 100m and 200m at the last two Olympics, the 32-year-old Namibian hinted he would drop the longer event as he chases Donovan Bailey's 9.84 sec 100m world record. "This year I'm going to try and see how close I'm going to get to the world record in the 100," he said. "If I'm going to break a world record outdoors then my chance is biggest in the 100."

Also among his list of ambitions is a gold medal at the world championships in Seville in August to go with his 1993 200m world title and gold at the African Games in Johannesburg where he said he had his greatest chance of improving his best time of 9.86 and cracking the world record. "The track is very fast and September is usually when we peak so I can see how fast I can run in Johannesburg," he said.

Britain's Colin Jackson said he was hoping to beat the 13 second barrier on Saturday as he pursues his ultimate quest to break his own five-year-old 110m hurdles mark of 12.91.

Australia's world 400m champion Cathy Freeman resumes her disrupted season after pulling out of the 200m at the Canberra meeting two weeks ago with the same quadricep strain which forced her out of an Adelaide meeting a fortnight earlier.

Pages related to this article
AthletesDisciplinesCompetitions
Loading...