Can Powell step up to the pace in Berlin?

It’s been six years since Asafa Powell first stepped on a track to represent Jamaica at the IAAF World Championships of Athletics in Paris, France.

Since that time, Powell, the man who has set four world records in the 100 metres and who has run under 9.80 seconds more than anyone else in history, has one individual medal to show for all his efforts over two Olympic Games and two World Championships. He missed the championships in Helsinki in 2005 because of a torn groin muscle.

Generally beloved by an increasingly frustrated fan base, Powell is just days away from his third world championships in now what has become a quest to redeem a career that promised so much but has so far realised so little.

The jury is still out as to why Powell has failed to rise to the occasion at major championships. That he is the 2006 Commonwealth Games champion counts for very little considering that American sprinters – the singular most dominant force in the short sprints – do not participate at the Commonwealth Games.

Some argue that Powell’s body is unable to handle the three rounds of qualifiers leading to the finals. They leave him weakened for the finals where he has never been able to finish higher than fifth. Others argue that mentally Powell is not able to handle the pressure of major championships and eventually folds once that pressure comes to bear.

So will Powell finally break through in 2009 and win the blue ribbon sprint at the Games that are set to get underway on Saturday, August 15?  I don’t think so.

Why? For all the reasons listed above and the fact that Powell has no stomach for a fight.

Merlene Ottey never won an Olympic gold but it was not for the lack of trying. She fought hard but there was always someone who was better on the day. Between 2003 and August 2008, when Usain Bolt emerged as perhaps the greatest sprinter of all time, there was no one better than Asafa Powell. In those years Powell dropped times that no other sprinter would even dream of approaching but still each time he got to a final he was beaten by a time that he usually ‘easily’ achieves.

In 2007, Powell was favoured to win the 100 metre dash in Osaka, Japan. No one in the finals with him had ever beaten him before yet Powell finished third behind Tyson Gay, who would go on to win three gold medals at those championships, and Bahamian Derrick Atkins.

Powell admitted afterwards that he panicked. Panicked, because someone who had never beaten him before presented a challenge and instead of repelling the challenge, he quit.

Since that time nothing has changed with Asafa Powell. He is still the ‘mama’s boy’ who is more likely to run and hide behind his mother’s frock tail than rise to the challenge of a fellow sprinter.

It is even worse now that he is not the fastest man on the planet. That title belongs to fellow Jamaican Usain Bolt, who thrives under pressure. Tyson Gay, while not having ever gone as fast as Powell’s 9.72 seconds, is also clearly now a better sprinter.

Before, when Powell was king, he couldn’t pull off a major championship title. Now when he is not, he certainly will not, as he has shown that he is the type of athlete that if he can’t get things to happen his way, will most likely to ‘take up his ball and run home’.

And that’s why he won’t win an individual medal in Berlin.

Tags: Leighton Levy