Sarajevo Meet Runs Into Logistics Troubles
It’s called Solidarity in Sarajevo, but the IAAF’s bid to stage a major track and field meet in the war-ravaged city today appears to have fallen apart.
Michael Johnson withdrew Saturday because of safety fears and Noureddine Morceli said he couldn’t shake off an attack of the flu. Triple jumper Jonathan Edwards said he never intended to compete despite announcements by the sport’s world governing body that he would be there.
About 120 stars were supposed to arrive in Sarajevo on a charter flight from the IAAF Grand Prix meet in Milan. Instead, some 70 were expected to make it.
The biggest names will be Kenya’s new distance running sensation Daniel Komen, Olympic high jump champion Charles Austin, and Olympic 100-hurdle champion Lyudmilla Engquist of Sweden.
Double Olympic champion Svetlana Masterkova of Russia backed out at the last minute.
The Solidarity for Sarajevo meet is the first major sports event to be held in the city since war broke out in former Yugoslavia almost five years ago and IAAF president Primo Nebiolo was critical of the athletes who stayed away.
The athletes should compete and try and achieve the best results, he said after a flight that took off 2 hours late, circled Split five times and was diverted to the Croatian capital before flying on to Sarajevo.
“They must also be brave,” Nebiolo said. “Some of our athletes have shown that they have no courage and that is not nice.”
The war ended nine months ago and, replacing the terrifying sounds of machine guns, mortar bombs, guided missiles and screaming fighter jets, the first gunfire in Sarajevo Monday will start the women’s 100 meters.
According to the IAAF, the meet was a chance for world track and field stars to throw their weight behind the peace process in the war-torn region. The sight of world champions and world record-holders like Johnson, Morceli and Edwards competing in a city once torn apart by violent conflict was to give a boost to the people of Bosnia.
Instead, the IAAF has wound up in an embarrassing situation.
It announced that Edwards - the world champion and world record-holder in the triple jump - would compete against Olympic champion Kenny Harrison.
That appeared to be a misunderstanding. Apparently Edwards suggested that athletes who competed for money in Milan Saturday ought to go to Sarajevo “as a humanitarian gesture.”
The IAAF assumed that meant Edwards would compete. But the Brit had made other commitments and never said he was going to Sarajevo. Now, there is no triple jump.
Johnson, world and Olympic 200- and 400-meter champion who won his 57th 400-meter race in a row at Milan, thought long and hard about competing in Sarajevo, worried that it was not as safe as some people suggested.
He sought advice from the U.S. embassy in the city, from the mayor and even from people who organized security in the 1984 Winter Games in Sarajevo. In the end, he decided against it.
Dennis Mitchell, winner of the 100 meters in Saturday’s IAAF Grand Prix meet, didn’t want to go, either.