Lewis-Francis could surprise Greene

13 April 2012

Maurice Greene will not be able to mistake him, the lad with the gold tooth and the red barnet.

While the imposing figure of Dwain Chambers does offer a threat, however slim, to the American's 100m hegemony at the World Championships this weekend, there are those in the British camp who reckon the world's fastest man would also be well advised to keep half an eye trained on our quiet kid in the background.

For when Britain's team chief Max Jones ponders who, in his 62-strong team, might spring the sort of surprise here that Kelly Holmes did over 800m in Sydney last year when she won the bronze medal which no one thought credible, he glances at an 18-year-old "jack the lad" who he has watched walking around Edmonton in a daydream.

"I think Mark Lewis-Francis could be the one to shock a lot of people," says Jones.

"He's the lad who's got everything.

"There's touch of magic there. With him, it's just a matter of time."

Maybe that time will come quicker than anyone dare think.

Lewis-Francis is a boy taking his first step into Greene's kingdom. He is 18, an absolute beginner at this level and should, by rights, be sent packing back to his mum's house in Darlaston having been chewed up by the grownups.

Yet, as Jones notes: "He is utterly fearless, has no regard for his rivals and, when he lines up in the 100m heats tomorrow, will probably be the only contender not to know what it's like to be beaten by Greene."

Oh yes, and MLF, as his team-mates affectionately call their 'toddler', does happen to be the most remarkable prospect British athletics has unearthed in many a year.

Donovan Bailey, Canada's old Olympic hero who has hobbled here on dodgy knees for a last hurrah, calls him "simply the most phenomenal young athlete I've ever seen, surely the next Olympic champion".

How appropriate then if as one maestro departs the scene, a new one should choose Edmonton to make his first major mark on Sunday night.

Of course, it's just fantasy to talk of a medal for the boy but then the boy deals in fantasy.

This year - remember he's not even a senior yet - he's broken the world junior record en route to a 60m bronze in the World Indoor championships, lifted the European Cup 100m title and struck double gold in the European Junior Championships.

And all that came on the back of training only three days a week.

Lewis-Francis ponders the fact that Greene has been suffering from tendinitis in his left knee and spouts the sprinters' mantra here that if there was ever a time to take the Olympic and double world champion's scalp, it's now when the aura comes packaged with just a hint of vulnerability.

Yet he makes no claims for himself; he just dreams of reaching the final while identifying his ever more convincing 23-year-old team-mate Chambers, who beat Lewis-Francis in the trials, as the one "who, if he keeps his cool, will beat Greene, definitely".

Yet, though Lewis-Francis has yet to even break 10.1sec let alone join the elite sub-10 club, his own champion's temperament and his rate of progress is so startling that he admits: "Every year, I keep surprising myself and that's what I'll be trying to do here - go out and surprise myself."

It's hard to depart from Ato Boldon's conjecture that the gold will be scrapped for between himself, American Tim Montgomery (fastest in the world this year with his 9.84sec run in Oslo), Chambers and Greene.

Yet, does Lewis-Francis feel he could muscle in for the bronze which Chambers won in his own breakthrough race at the last championships in Seville?

"Who knows?" he shrugs with a smile which suggests we shouldn't be surprised if he surprises himself once again.

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Lewis-Francis could surprise Greene

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