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Thursday, September 21
Aussie papers accuse Perec of quitting
Reuters
SYDNEY -- Australian newspapers accused
French track star Marie-Jose Perec on Friday of fleeing Sydney
because she did not want to face local favorite Cathy Freeman
in an eagerly awaited 400 meters Olympic showdown.
"Mademoiselle La Chicken" was the splash headline in
Friday's Daily Telegraph tabloid. It said she was "running
scared."
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Perec questioned by police
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SINGAPORE -- Police questioned French Olympic running star
Marie-Jose Perec and her companion for much of the day Thursday,
after the companion allegedly attacked a TV news cameraman at
Singapore's international airport.
Perec and her American companion, Anthuan Maybank, left
Singapore late Thursday night, bound for Paris aboard an Air France
jetliner. A crowd of journalists and photographers was on hand,
startling other passengers waiting to board the plane.
Perec refused to talk to reporters, leaving the world to wonder
about one of the most bizarre episodes coming from the Sydney
Games.
Perec, defending champion in the 400 meters, fled Sydney late
Wednesday after reportedly being accosted by an unidentified man in
her hotel room.
Her anticipated duel with Australian Cathy Freeman in the
high-profile event had been expected to be one of the high points
of this year's Olympics.
-- Associated Press
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The tabloid quoted Australian head coach Chris Wardlaw as
saying Perec would only have quit the Games if she knew she was
not in sufficiently good shape to challenge for a third
successive 400 Olympic title.
"I think if she is not here she obviously wasn't in shape,
so it wouldn't have been a great race (between her and Freeman)
anyway. She's obviously not ready to run," Wardlaw said. "She's the athlete of the decade in the 90s, a truly great
athlete, and obviously in her mind she wasn't going to be able
to compete up to that level."
Perec was flying back to Paris on Friday after fleeing the
Sydney Games in tears saying a man had threatened her in her
hotel.
The Australian newspaper chose the headline "Perec's Great
Escape."
"Perec would never admit she could not beat Freeman," it
said.
"An alleged aggressive intruder at her hotel door yelling at
her to leave gave her the escape hatch she needed."
Perec, 32, won the 400 at the 1992 Barcelona
Games and then scored a 200-400 double four years later
in Atlanta.
The runner from Guadeloupe has been plagued by illness and
injury since Atlanta and has raced only twice this year.
The fiercely independent Perec, who has always had a
difficult relationship with athletics officials and the media,
had been under a great deal of pressure ahead of her expected
showdown with Freeman.
Perec lived up to her reputation in Sydney by shunning the
French athletics team's official news conference on Tuesday. She
also irritated French officials by declining to join their team
training camp in the Sydney suburb of Narrabeen.
Perec took a gamble earlier this year by leaving the stable
of American coaching guru John Smith to join German Wolfgang
Meier, the husband and former coach of former East German
sprinter Marita Koch who still holds the 400 world
record.
Freeman shrugged off the Perec drama.
"I don't want to know about it," said the Aboriginal runner.
"I'm focused on my race and the opponents who will definitely be
running. I'm not underestimating anyone. It is the Olympics."
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Perec says hotel break-in forces her to leave Games
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