field team, he listened to overtures from agents and made plans to cash in on
his newfound celebrity.
Seven weeks later, Carter hasn’t been in another 400-meter hurdles race. He
got in a squabble with his local club, missed out on the big-money meets in
Europe and instead returned to anonymity in Hampton, Va.
In other words, it has been business as usual for Carter, who overcame a
decade’s worth of adversity to become the first Baltimorean in a generation to
earn a berth in Olympic track and field. The Mervo High grad remains a mystery
to much of his competition, but Carter figures that Llewellyn Herbert, Angelo
Taylor and company had better be prepared for him to continue to chip away at
his times and become a medal contender.
“I haven’t had a target on my back at all this year,” Carter said. “Nobody
knows me, except that I keep dropping my time. No one knows what to expect
from me, and that makes me dangerous.”
Carter is the mystery man in the one-lap barriers. He didn’t think that
would be the case July 22, after he charged to the final American Olympic
berth. Carter thought that he would sign a deal with a new agent, head
overseas and continue his progression in ritzy locales such as Zurich and
Monaco.
There was a catch. Carter’s contract with Maryland Elite doesn’t expire
until after the Olympics. He complained that the club wasn’t seeing to his
racing needs; the club countered that it was, and that he needed to be
patient. Last month, Carter announced that he had severed ties with Maryland
Elite, but he won’t be free to work a new deal until October.
If Carter’s fuzzy affiliation is a negative, everything else in this
memorable summer has been a positive for a 22-year-old who has seen some hard
times. As a child, he was stricken with myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular
disease. His thymus was removed at the age of 12. Carter earned national prep
honors running for a high school, Mervo, that won’t get a track until next
year.
A condition that caused pain in his lower right hip was diagnosed after the
U.S. trials. A therapist made the necessary adjustments, Carter resumed a
serious training load and he’s in the best shape of his life. He arrived in
Sydney last weekend, healthy and confident.
“I didn’t spend the summer going back and forth to Europe,” Carter said in
a late-August phone interview. “There’ll be only one instance of jetlag to
deal with. I haven’t been running all-out races, but I have been consistently
training.”
Carter is no longer a student at Hampton University, but he retreated there
in late July for solitude and to resume his partnership with Maurice Pierce,
who’s an assistant coach at the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference program. The
two first hooked up last fall, after Carter learned that he was academically
ineligible. That situation led him to turn pro.
“James was unsure of training with the men’s team here,” Pierce said. “The
university is primed to have someone run fast in May and June, at the end of
the college season. He was talking about making the Olympic team a year ago,
so we needed to reverse the focus of his training – prepare him to run fast in
the summer and September, this month.”
Carter’s development has to frighten the world’s other premier hurdlers. He
began this year with two meaningful seasons in the event and a personal best
of 49.45, nearly three seconds off the world record. Since then, he has
entered five meets, run seven races and lowered his standard an amazing six
times.
He went 49.42 at a meet at George Mason University in May, 49.10 in Atlanta
later that month. Over six days in June, he dipped to 49.08 in Czechoslovakia,
then 49.03 in Switzerland. At the U.S. trials, Carter went 48.87 in the
semifinals and came back less than 18 hours later with a 48.46 in the final.
Only three men in the world have dipped under 48 seconds this year. Carter
plans to be the fourth next week, even if it’s only 70 degrees at the Olympic
Stadium.
“I’ve just been doing what I needed to do in practice, testing myself
there,” Carter said. “When I do certain times by myself, I think what I can do
against competition. One day, I ran a 500 meters by myself in 61 seconds. The
idea is to be able to handle three hard races at the Olympics.”
Carter will be reunited with his mother Down Under because Marilyn Knight’s
employer has arranged for her to go to Sydney to see her son run. In early
August, he kissed her goodbye and headed back to Hampton, because things had
gotten too crazy in Baltimore.
There was the young lady who had never said boo to him at Mervo, and
suddenly wanted to be his friend. Carter couldn’t sit in the school’s lobby
without being bombarded by custodians seeking an autograph. When he was
standing in line at the Avenue at White Marsh to see “The Nutty Professor,” a
woman said “You’re that track guy.” A foundation for myasthenia gravis wanted
a spokesman.
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Carter hopes to be in even greater demand when he comes home next month.
Carter file
Date of birth: May 7, 1978
Height: 5 feet 11
Weight: 185 pounds
Hometown: Baltimore
Residence: Hampton, Va.
High school: Mervo
College: Hampton
Olympic event: 400 hurdles
How he got to Sydney: Finished third at U.S. trials in July.
The competition Carter is ranked No. 11 in the world this year:
Name ……………….Nation………….. ’00 best
Angelo Taylor ……… U.S…………….. 47.62
L. Herbert ……….. S. Africa …………..47.93
Eric Thomas ………… U.S. ……………. 47.94
Rawlinson ………….. G. Brit. ………….. 48.22
Nunes de Araujo ……..Brazil …………… 48.25
Felix Sanchez ………..D. Rep. …………..48.33
Al-Somaily …………..S. Arab. ………….48.33
Sam Matete ………… Zambia ……………48.38
Fabrizio Mori ………… Italy …………….48.41
Bayano Kamani …………U.S. …………… 48.43
James Carter ………….U.S…………….. 48.46
Olympic profiles
The five other Baltimore-area athletes profiled during the week leading up
to the Sydney Games:
Sept. 8: Swimmer Tommy Hannan
Yesterday: Triathlete Joanna Zeiger
Tomorrow: Canoeist Lecky Haller
Tuesday: Swimmer Michael Phelps
Wednesday: Gymnast Elise Ray
A special section previewing the 2000 Games will run in Wednesday’s paper.
It will include the Ray profile, a list of other Olympians from Maryland, a
look at track sensation Marion Jones and 20 other athletes to watch, plus a
venue map, TV schedule and more. For Internet archives of The Sun’s Olympic
coverage, go to www.sunspot.net/sports/olympics/.