Johnson Says He’ll Set Record

Michael Johnson is convinced he would have broken Butch Reynolds’ 400-meter world record at the World Championships if he hadn’t been injured during his 150-meter race against Donovan Bailey.

“I was in very good shape before and had been running well continually,” he said Friday, two days before running in a 200-meter race at Crystal Palace. “I had run 43.75 in April, so I probably would have broken the record (43.29) at the World Championships.

“But I don’t want to get into a bunch of ifs and maybes. I just have to face the future and I believe that eventually I will break it.”

Johnson, who set the 200-meter world record of 19.32 in the 1996 Olympic final, took up a challenge June 1 to run against 100-meter world record-holder Bailey over 150 meters in Toronto’s SkyDome. He pulled up while trailing just over halfway with a leg muscle injury that sidelined him for more than three weeks.

Between that race and last week’s worlds at Athens, Johnson ran only one competitive race, finishing fifth in Paris June 25. That ended his streak of 58 consecutive victories in the 400 meters.

“The motivation this year has come from the fact that it’s been a difficult season,” Johnson said. “I had to go to the biggest meet of the year, the World Championships, having not run any races for a month and a half prior to that and not knowing for sure where I was physically.

“Considering the fact that I have been injured, I am happy with my win at the World Championships.”

On Wednesday, Johnson won the 400 at the prestigious Zurich meet.

In Sunday’s meet, he will race against a field of little-known athletes, while the 400-meter race has U.S. champion Antonio Pettigrew, three other finalists from Athens, and Olympic runner-up Roger Black.

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