Day Three at the Track Worlds

Patrice Sulpice

French sprinter Patrice Sulpice, who crashed at high speed while training
on the track at Bogota has, as reported earlier in this news service,
suffered grave injuries including a fracture of the eighth vertebra
involving compression of the spinal cord.

French doctors' prognosis is far from optimistic, but not as categorical as
that of the Colombian doctor quoted by news agencies who stated that
Sulpice would never walk again.

French team doctor Michel Provot says "the prognosis for future functioning
of the lower limbs remains very uncertain". However, he says that he has
hopes for a favourable outcome since "there are cases where once the spinal
cord is completely freed it completely regains its functions. All I can say
is that it is a matter of time, a long time."

Patrice Sulpice will be repatriated to France Thursday where he will be
taken into the care of Professor Saillant at La Pitie-Salpetriere hospital
in Paris. For, in the words of L'Equipe, "the longest race of his career".

Men's 200 Meters Sprint

   * Harnett commented: "At the end of the day, this is only the qualifying
round and I haven't won anything. It's like a tennis player who has the
fastest serve in the world but that doesn't mean he's going to win
Wimbledon."
   * Later today (Thursday) following the qualifiers, the men's sprint
first round was postponed until tomorrow after it began raining at the
velodrome.

Qualifying time-trial

(Top 24 qualify for the first round) 1. Curt Harnett (Canada) 9.865 secs. (New world record) 2. Darryn Hill (Australia) 9.926 3. Gary Neiwand (Australia) 9.935 4. Frederic Magne (France) 9.978 5. Jose Manuel Moreno (Spain) 10.008 6. Jens Fiedler (Germany) 10.036 7. Michael Hubner (Germany) 10.079 all of the above broke the previous record of 10.099 seconds set by Vladimir Adamachvilli (Russia) in 1990.

8. Jan Van Eijden (Germany) 10.154 9. Roberto Chiappa (Italy) 10.187 10. Florian Rousseau (France) 10.188 11. Marty Nothstein (U.S.) 10.212 12. Martin Hrbacek (Slovakia) 10.232 13. William Clay (U.S.) 10.257 14. Ainars Kiksis (Latvia) 10.263 15. Pavel Buran (Czech Republic) 10.269 16. Frederico Paris (Italy) 10.278 17. Josep Escudero (Spain) 10.328 18. Jaroslav Jerabek (Slovakia) 10.334 19. Paul Swift (U.S.) 10.337 20. Cristian Arrue (Chile) 10.342 21. George Himonetos (Greece) 10.352 22. Mika Hamalainen (Finland) 10.359 23. Alexei Zinoviev (Russia) 10.368 24. Joel Gelabert (Cuba) 10.385 all of the above qualify.

25. Jose Lovito (Argentina) 10.392 26. Lambros Vassilopoulos (Greece) 10.397 27. Eric Schoefs (Belgium) 10.419 28. Viesturs Berzins (Latvia) 10.437 29. Trey Gannon (U.S.) 10.440 30. Christian Meidlinger (Austria) 10.443 31. Julio Herrera (Cuba) 10.447 32. Toshinobu Saito (Japan) 10.466 33. Sergei Bohantsev (Russia) 10.470 34. Doug Baron (Canada) 10.476 35 equal. Justin Grace (Canada) 10.486 35 equal. Lars Brian Nielsen (Denmark) 10.486 37. Leonardo Branchi (Italy) 10.526 38. Inguss Veips (Latvia) 10.528 39. Keiji Kojima (Japan) 10.530 40. Gil Cordovez (Cuba) 10.542

Men's Olympic Sprint

Final:

  Germany (Jens Fiedler, Michael Hubner, Jan Van Eiden) (58.098) beat
France (Herve Thuet, Benoit Vetu, Florian Rousseau) (58.335).

3rd place race:

  U.S. (Marty Nothstein, Erin Hartwell, William Clay) (59.289 seconds) beat
Spain (Jose Moreno, Josep Escudero, Isaac Galvez) (59.941).

...or presented differently,

1,000-Meter Team Olympic Sprint Finals

1. Germany 58.098 seconds 2. France 58.335 3. United States 59.289 4. Spain 59.941 5. Italy 59.960 6. Belarus 1:01.118 7. Argentina 1:01.191 8. New Zealand 1:02.182

   * Hubner rode a spectacular last leg for his team to come from behind to
edge out France's Florian Rousseau in the last lap.
   * In the Olympic sprint, each team has three riders who take it in turns
to lead the team.