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Saddler leaves Greene red-faced

Greg Saddler? Who's he when he's at home?

Natural enough question -- at home, Greg Saddler is a complete unknown. Till 24 hours ago, no one had heard of him. Till he lined up on the starting blocks at Athens, he hadn't been picked to start in an international racing event.

10.08 seconds after the starting gun had gone off, Saddler was somebody. And struggling in his wake were the likes of Maurice Greene -- who, last year, at this same venue, set the world record for the distance; Ato Boldon, the Commonwealth champion; and Jason Gardner, the European indoor champion.

"I'm as surprised as anyone else," said the runner whose last recorded success of any note came in 1994, when he won the United States collegiate indoor title before drifting away from athletics. The race in Athens marks Saddler's first outing of any note, after ace coach Tony Campbell, who has worked with the likes of Michael Johnson, took him in hand and got him to lace on his track shoes again.

And just to put the icing on the cake, it all happened on the day Saddler turned 26.

The big surprise was Maurice Greene, widely regarded as a dead cert for the Olympic gold over the distance, who today managed only 10.16 for an incredible fourth place. The only excuse going for Greene is that he was fresh off the jet, having accepted a big money offer to run in the Tsiklitiria Grand Prix in Athens, in the same week that he was scheduled to run in a Nike-sponsored meet in Oregon.

Greene, with two defeats against his name this summer, refused to use fatigue as an excuse for the latest one. "I thought I was ready. I tried, but I lost, and there is nothing else I can say about it," the ace sprinter said.

Saddler led from start to finish, with Boldon chasing him hard but not finding the spurt to go past the race leader. Tim Montgomery of the United States came in third at 10.15, one tenths of a second ahead of compatriot Greene. Gardner, who in a warm up race just an hour and a half before the big one set the fastest time by a Briton this year when he breasted the tape in 10.18, could manage only 10.25.

The defeat leaves Greene with some soul searching to do. Not to mention some hard work on the practise tracks, before setting out to defend his reputation in Sydney later this year, as the star turn in the 100 metre Olympic event.