| Outdoor season set to begin |
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| Posted by webmaster on Thursday, March 27 2003 |
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Nicolas Macrozonaris took a week off following the end of his indoor season, and is now back in full training for the upcoming outdoor campaign that will kick off next month in the United States. Nicolas along with fellow Canadian team members Anson Henry, Okiki Akinremi, Hank Palmer, Eric Frempong and Charles Allen will travel to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to take part in a spring training camp from April 8 to the 13th. The team will compete in the 4x100m relay event at the LSU Alumni Gold meet on April 11-12. Nicolas also expects to run the 200m at LSU. Following the LSU meet the team will next compete at historic Franklin Field in Philadelphia at the 109th Penn Relays from April 24-26. Nicolas plans to run the relay there as well as individual races in the 100 and/or 200m. chrisg@nicolasmacrozonaris.com |
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| World Indoor Championships |
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An indoor season that started with so much promise last November ended in disappointment and frustration today in Birmingham, England for Nicolas Macrozonaris. Up most of the night with a stomach ailment Nick was not himself as he lined up for his preliminary heat this morning, barely making it into the semi-finals as one of the three final qualifiers in a time of 6.71 seconds. In semi-final number three, Nick was last out of the blocks. A valiant attempt to get back into the race failed as he finished 6th in a time of 6.67 seconds, nowhere near his season best mark of 6.56 seconds. His reaction time off the blocks was a very slow .215 seconds, valuable fractions of a second that are hard to make up in a world class field and over a short distance such as the 60 meters. Fellow Canadian Dave Tomlin failed to advance to the final as well, finishing last in his semi-final heat in a time of 6.83 seconds. American Justin Gatlin won the gold medal in the final in 6.46 seconds. Full results at: http://www.iaaf.org/WIC03/index.html chrisg@nicolasmacrozonaris.com |
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In Vienna, Austria today Nicolas Macrozonaris gave the thumbs up after winning his 60 meter race. For the last 2 weeks he has been dealing with minor leg injuries that had forced him to cut short his earlier European trip. With the World Indoor Championships in Birmingham, England fast approaching, he has been focusing on being fit and ready to go for the 60-meter competition that begins on March 14. In his race today he started out conservatively, turning it up a notch midway through to run down and pass his fellow competitors and finish first in 6.70 seconds. Nicolas will depart for Birmingham on the 12th. Indoor Match 6 Nations Meet--60 meters: Finish | Time | Country | Athlete | 1st | 6.70 | CAN | Nicolas Macrozonaris | 2nd | 6.70 | SLO | Matic Osovnikar | 3rd | 6.72 | CHN | Yunbo Shen | 4th | 6.73 | CHN | Haijian Chen | 5th | 6.78 | CAN | Dave Tomlin |
chrisg@nicolasmacrozonaris.com |
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reproduced courtesy of Dave Stubbs, Montreal Gazette. The Greek White Hope Nicolas Macrozonaris aims to be next great Canadian sprinter and his dash toward the 2004 Olympics comes next week, when he hopes to line up spots in big European meets Dave Stubbs, The Gazette  Friday, March 07, 2003 Photo: Pierre Obendrauf There will be plenty on the line for Laval's Nicolas Macrozonaris next Friday in Birmingham, England - a great deal more than many of sprinting's fastest men coiled in the starting blocks, human bullets aiming to be swiftest to a target 60 metres down the track. For Macrozonaris, the ninth IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics is where he hopes to impress European meet directors, the promoters who hold the invitations to competitive, big-money races in the crucial pre-Olympic summer. In Birmingham, the 22-year-old will be 60 metres nearer, if still very many miles from the 2004 Olympic Games. His race to Athens begins now, in earnest. "If Nic makes the final next week, he'll be invited to a lot of this summer's meets where he'll run against the best guys in the world," said Daniel St-Hilaire, Macrozonaris's coach. "That's where he needs to compete on a regular basis, to learn to run with those guys and not be intimidated by them. He'll come to understand he can beat them, and that's the next step." Three times this season, Macrozonaris has run 60 metres in 6.6 seconds or less, a time that could well qualify him for the World Indoor final. Earning that lane will be a tall order, given that he's working his way back from two injuries suffered in the past month. Still, he's been rounding into top form at Centre Claude Robillard, his Montreal training base. He left last night for Vienna, where he's scheduled to race Sunday as a tuneup for next Friday's biennial championships. Earlier this season, Macrozonaris was ranked first in the world in the 50- and 60-metre indoor sprints, having set a personal-best 6.56 in the longer event in December. But in Saskatoon last month, he pulled the 'chute in late race when he felt a twinge in his left quadriceps. Ten days later, racing to a 60-metre bronze medal in Stockholm, his right hamstring grew suddenly tight. Neither injury was crippling, but together they prompted revision of his calendar. Macrozonaris withdrew from three European meets, focusing instead on muscle regeneration and on-track technique. "I'd like to have raced more this season," he said. "But I've been going since November (three meets at McGill, and sprints in Sherbrooke, Saskatoon and Stockholm). Most guys who are competing now are racing, not training. I'm training very hard and, hopefully, I'll be more prepared." Macrozonaris burst onto the international sprint scene in August 2000 with a fine 100-metre clocking of 10.19 seconds at the Olympic trials. In Sydney, wet behind the ears and recovering from a pulled hamstring, he ran individually and on the relay team. He won his first Canadian championship last June with a wind-aided 100 metres of 9.91 seconds, the fastest ever run by a non-black sprinter. In a new era, with Olympic champions Donovan Bailey and Bruny Surin having retired, Macrozonaris's performance was a revelation, no matter a tailwind exceeding the allowable 2 metres per second. "A friend told me: 'You're the next guy. With no Donovan or Bruny, this is your time, you have to capture it,' " Macrozonaris recalled. "I was freaking out, I felt so much pressure. At the finish, my mind was in other places. You saw no smile, no passion, no nothing. It wasn't until I watched it on tape that I appreciated the moment. "Yes, I feel pressure, following Donovan and Bruny. But it's a challenge, and life is all about challenges. It's for me to go out and prove that Canada is not dead in track and field. I want to be causing problems for Americans and the rest of the world." If the national championship was a dream realized, the joy was short-lived. Macrozonaris went to the Commonwealth Games a month later and failed to make the final, physically spent and convincingly eliminated after three rounds. Crushed by his performance and disillusioned by team politics, he stepped back last September and took stock of his life, in and out of his cleats. He'd been the fastest kid in the neighbourhood since kindergarten, the younger of two sons born to Spiros Macrozonaris, a Greek immigrant, and Doris Morissette, a French-Canadian. At 16, he was so energized by Bailey's 1996 Atlanta Olympic gold-medal sprint that he immediately ran outdoors, chalked 100 metres on his street and got down to business. Growing into adulthood, he was partly the victim of conventional distraction last year, moving out of the family home into his own apartment and taking on daily responsibilities he'd never faced. But he also knew enough to look in the mirror and realize he had to behave more like a professional athlete, which in fact he was becoming. "I'm learning discipline," Macrozonaris said. "I know I can't put myself in a situation where I'll do things I shouldn't - go out late with friends, eat Big Macs before bed, or have a drink. It's tough for me to follow a strict game plan - diet, training, massage, the chiropractor. But if I can master that ..." Last fall, the changes came in a flood. He left American agent Ray Flynn, admittedly just a frisky pony in Flynn's stable of proven track thoroughbreds. (Federico Rosa, a well-connected Italian, is now booking meets for Macrozonaris in Europe.) And he hired a new coach, having had just one, high-school teacher Sylvain Desmarais, since he was 18. In September he opted for the more seasoned St-Hilaire, who has worked with Surin and several elite jumpers. St-Hilaire has three objectives: to increase Macrozonaris's training capacity to provide more endurance; to keep him free of major injury; and to shave a hundredth of a second off the sprinter's 10.19 personal-best, legal-wind 100 metres. (The world record is 9.78, held by American Tim Montgomery.) "Ten point one-eight will open the door," St-Hilaire said. "After that, I believe Nic will run very fast. But first we need to break down that door." He'll hear no argument from his eager pupil, who also understands this cold reality of complexion: European track promoters are desperate to find the elusive, fleet-footed white man. "People say a white guy running sub-10 (seconds) is worth $1 million," Macrozonaris said. "(Australia's) Matt Shirvington was offered that between 1998 and 2000, had he done it. But I don't even think about it. Eventually I'm going to break it. Or someone else is." For now, he gets by on meager athlete assistance, rare appearance fees, purse money and sponsorship from Oakley sunglasses. He expects to sign soon with Top Elite Sports Management, a new athlete-representation firm founded by Surin, a dear friend and trusted advisor. Greece covets him, given his bloodlines, but citizenship issues will not allow him to run for his father's homeland, at least not yet. Still, the host nation of the 2004 Olympics has offered Macrozonaris a free pass into any of its meets, and will take generous care of him. Should he qualify, the Athens Games will practically be a home-soil meet. He is disappointed that Montreal's Greek community has been mostly stingy with its moral support. The trilingual sprinter remains bitter that he was laughed at in 1999 during a Greek radio interview when he boldly suggested he wanted to run in the 2000 Olympics. "It was sweet revenge," he says of his post-Sydney visit to the same radio studio. "The best feeling for me is when someone says something cannot be done, and I show them that it can." But elsewhere, Macrozonaris is not lacking for motivation. During the world championships in Edmonton two summers ago, he was mobbed at a Greek reception like a rock star. He still recalls tears welling in a grown man's eyes, a treasured memory to share as he embarks on his long, fast run to Athens: "This man told me his son had watched me race in Sydney, and immediately the boy went outside and started running. I thought, 'That's exactly what I did in 1996.' "I run today for myself, and for these amazing little things - that a kid will actually run because of me, just a guy from Chomedey." Macrozonaris Fast Facts Birthdate: Aug. 22, 1980 (age 22). Home town: Laval Vital stats: 6 feet, 172 pounds Occupation: Full-time athlete Languages: English, French, Greek Coach: Daniel St-Hilaire Club Affiliation: St-Laurent Sιlect Best times (indoors): 50 metres, 5.69 seconds; 60 metres, 6.56 seconds Best times (outdoors): 100 metres, 10.19 seconds 200 metres, 21.07 seconds On the calendar: Ninth IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics, March 14-16, Birmingham, England Official Web site: www.nicolasmacrozonaris.com Quotable: "Yes, I feel pressure, following Donovan (Bailey) and Bruny (Surin). But it's a challenge, and life is all about challenges. It's for me to go out and prove that Canada is not dead in track and field." |
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