Maurice Greene: The attitude of greatness

There is hardly a middle ground were US sprinting icon, Olympic and World champion Maurice Greene is concerned. You either love him or hate him.

Ever a showman, the former 100-metre world record holder and the man still responsible for the 60m world record mark, divides opinion like few before him and few since. Call him confident, or cocky, but he's never short of an opinion. Extremely talented, 'Mo' represents an era of sprinting when rivalry and attitude coloured the sport.

Today, the IAAF ambassador is still keeping busy and staying close to the sport he loves, hosting his own show on Eurosport, coaching at UCLA and, of course, sizing up today's big names.

Sunday Talk caught up with him during a recent filming on the island.

Let's talk!

André Lowe (AL): Ok Maurice, tell us a bit about yourself, your family and your early days growing up.

Maurice Greene (MG): My life is an open book. I grew up with two brothers and one sister. We weren't the richest, but we weren't the poorest either. My parents gave me what I needed, what I wanted they made me work for it and that taught me to be the person I am in life.

AL: Married, kids?

MG: No, I'm not married, but I just had a son, now he's one year old. His name is Maurice Benjamin and my daughter is 13 years old.

AL: Oh, well, belated congratulations. Now, every kid growing up played a bunch of sports, what were the sports that you enjoyed as a youngster?

MG: I played American football and track and field.

AL: Let me guess, you were a running back.

MG: Yes (laughs), I was the running back.

AL: We spoke about the importance of creating a personality and you had a lot of that, too much, depending on who you ask. You were always one for pre-race antics, from sticking out your tongue to God knows what. Really, what was that all about?

MG: (laughs) Oh man, no really, before the race I didn't know what I was doing, there was so much nervous energy inside of me, I just couldn't stay still. I wasn't nervous because of the competition, but just because I wanted to do well. Once I get nervous, for some reason my tongue comes sticking out. People thought it was to psych out other runners or that I was hype, but truthfully, I was oblivious to everything around me, only thing I paid attention to was myself.

AL: Nervous huh? I'm not sure I buy it, but ok (laughs). Where would you rank yourself among the greatest sprinters of all time?

MG: Aaaahhh, I can't rank myself. I will say this though, everybody had their era and their time. Jesse Owens had his, Carl Lewis had his, I had mine, Donovan Bailey had his and now it's Usain Bolt's time, so it's all different eras. While I was there, I would say I was the greatest, but that's not to take anything from the people before me or the people after me.

AL: Fair enough. You have had some epic battles, but who would you say was your greatest competitor?

MG: My greatest competitor is myself, even though Donovan and Ato Boldon were hard and I knew if I slipped up they would beat me. But I always challenged myself. The biggest competitor was myself.

AL: I think it was 1999 when you broke that 100m world record. Take us back to those emotions.

MG: Oh man, it's funny, because in '97 we went to the World Championships, but I won, but I didn't really knew my race like I knew it in 1999. I wasn't even supposed to run the 100m in the meet where I broke the record, but when I got to Athens we were working out and I just knew something would happen. Everybody was there competing in that race so I called my manager and said 'look, do whatever you have to ,get me in the race because I don't want this to go off without me'. Basically, I got to run the final, they had heats, but I couldn't run those and as I sat there watching the heats. I was so excited and I knew something was going to go down; everyone was in form, I knew my race better than ever. I won the World Championships in 9.88 seconds and I really didn't know what I was doing then and everyone was saying how special the track in Athens was. It's not like I was running for a world record, at that point of my career I was just trying to run the perfect race. Once the gun went off, I felt so smooth, but the race felt so long. I didn't think I broke a world record until I crossed the line and Ato Boldon was jumping on my back and pointing at the scoreboard and all kinds of emotions just came over me.

AL: So your fastest race was your longest (laughs)

MG: Hahahaha! Definitely man.

AL: You mentioned all the greats of the past, if you could race against anyone, dead or alive, active or not, who would that person be?

MG: You know what, I am such a competitor I wanna race against whoever says that they are the best, doesn't matter who that is. I think I run to the level of my competition, so whoever says they are the best I would wanna face them, let's find out!

AL: You are still the 60m WR holder, do you see any possible takers?

MG: Not too many people run indoors now and that's why it's still there because the way guys are running now they should be able to break that record, but you don't see any of the top guys running indoors.

AL: You have been to Jamaica often enough. What do you like most about the country?

MG: I like everything about Jamaica, especially the people. I don't know what it is, but the people in Jamaica take on to me and claim me as part of theirs for some reason.

AL: Well you are fast enough, so I guess you qualify.

MG: Yea, but I mean I brought Jamaica a lot of heartache sometimes too (laughs), but I think they just love me for who I am and I just love being around the people because they show me so much love and they treat me like I'm home and it's a good feeling to be here always.

AL: I'm going to call some athletes' names and you will give me the first words that come to mind.

AL: Usain Bolt.

MG: Electrifying.

AL: Yohan Blake

MG: Good, but not great yet.

AL: Asafa Powell

MG: (sighs) Oh man! It's not a few words that you can say with Asafa Powell because I believe he will go down as one of the greatest sprinters of all time, but he never could get over the hump in a final. The final is his demon, so to speak, because he is never able to come through that, but put him in a normal race and he can do remarkable things.

AL: Tyson Gay

MG: Always injured, he is the greatest injured runner I have ever seen.

AL: Justin Gatlin

MG: Hard life

AL: Well that's one way to put it I guess. Anyway, you were on 'Dancing With the Stars' weren't you?

MG: Yes

AL: Well, I didn't see it myself and perhaps that's a good thing, how bad was it?

MG: (Laughs) You know actually it went pretty well, I got fourth place out of 12 people, so I think I did a pretty good job. That was the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life; when I was finished my feet hurt for three weeks and it's crazy because I ran track all my life so I couldn't figure out why my feet hurt from dancing. That was so demanding and I think the hardest thing was trying to remember the whole routine, but I loved it.

AL: Well, do you have any Jamaican dance moves?

MG: Well, I can wine, every Jamaican can do that (laughs)

AL: Ok I guess that was a bad question, we will end it there (laughs). Respect 'Mo', really happy that you could join us this week. Always a pleasure catching up with you and all the best.

SPORT QUOTE

"Most people run a race to see who is fastest. I run a race to see who has the most guts."

- Steve Prefontaine, American distance legend