The banners are flourishing at the roadside, all the way into downtown Daegu. A picture of Usain Bolt alongside a picture of Asafa Powell, and a single question: "Who's faster?"
Alas, the question is answered. Even if Bolt decides to do his Gully Creeper dance from gun to tape, he will be faster; his friend, team-mate and rival is out of the World Championship 100 metres, all ambition of finally earning the global gold to set alongside his world records ended by a groin injury.
It's sad. Speaking on the eve of the Samsung Diamond League meeting in London earlier this month, Powell was clearly viewing Daegu as his best opportunity to add a global title to his global times, and his words were backed by the world listings for 2011 which showed him top of the pile on 9.78sec, a full tenth of a second ahead of the double world and Olympic champion's best this year.
Other than winning the Commonwealth title in 2006 – narrowly – this amiable and laconic resident of Kingston has not earned any international championship gold since setting his first world record of 9.77 in 2005, having finished fifth at the 2008 Olympics and earned bronze medals at the last two World Championships.
Powell, who will turn 29 in November, hinted that he felt he only had a limited opportunity to create a happy ending for that narrative of frustration, a narrative that continued last year as he began in scintillating form only to have to drop out early with hamstring and back problems.
"First I'm glad that I am healthy and able to finish my season," he said. "I've been running well so far and I have posted some great times."
He added, with one of his wide smiles: "Great for me – not 9.58, but – it's good. And I'm really confident. I've really been thinking about the World Championships. I don't have much time, and I don't want to miss my chances again."
But Powell also sounded a warning note: "It's the last competition before the World Championships so everyone is being very cautious. We all want to get out of this being healthy."
As things turned out, he didn't run in London. He did not want to risk exacerbating the groin strain he had incurred the previous week while competing in Budapest.
But three weeks down the line, that caution has proved fruitless. Powell has ruled himself out of the individual event, although he holds out a faint hope of contributing to the sprint relay at the end of the Championships.
That decision, clearly, was unavoidable. But the manner in which the news leaked out here - in the course of a press conference jointly organised by Puma and the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association (JAAA) at the Daeduk Cultural Centre - was a masterpiece of mismanagement.
An event that ended in farce had begun as a circus, as hundreds of reporters and camera crews had filed – past two puzzlingly pointless bouncers – into the Dream Hall, an auditorium which had been chosen deliberately for its capacity ahead of what was likely to be the biggest pre-Championship draw for the world's media, with all Jamaica's top sprinters due to appear at some point.
Such gatherings, particularly when they are organised by shoe companies, always involve a complicit deal as far as the press is concerned.
For the majority of those seated, the key objective was to hear what Bolt and his main rival had to say for themselves about a meeting which promised to be one of the highlights of the World Championships.
Before that could happen, they would hear from others a little lower down the draw card.
And before that could happen, they would hear from Alfred "Frano" Francis, Executive Member of the JAAA and Puma Ambassador, and Grace Jackson, JAAA vice-president, on the subject of What Makes Jamaicans Run So Fast? And watch not one, but two videos, projected on a screen which descended towards the heads of those on stage with terrifying speed but thankfully passed just behind them.
And before that could happen, they would hear from Howard Aris, President of the JAAA, on the History of Jamaican athletics.
And before that could happen, they would hear from the pleasant but nervous young lady operating as moderator about all these things that what would be happening before the thing they had actually turned up for started happening.
Time passed.
The microphones were working only intermittently, so much of what Mr Aris had to say about the genesis of Jamaican sprinting went unheard.
There were still technical problems when Francis and Jackson took part in their awkward three-hander discussion with the increasingly fraught MC. Francis, clad in the black, green and gold of Jamaica and sporting a beanie hat, looked particularly uncomfortable as he hunched and shifted on one of the two couches on stage, both strewn with cushions of similarly themed colours.
If you wanted to sum the whole thing up, the term "strenuously relaxed" would probably cover it.
Francis looked even more ill at ease when our MC observed artlessly: "You wear a lot of hats in the world of running," a comment which drew a rumble of cruel laughter from scribes becoming ever more aware of their looming deadlines.
There followed an uninformative interlude with Jamaica's two pre-eminent 400m hurdlers, world and Olympic champion Melaine Walker - "Melaine, that is the right spelling isn't it? Love that name" – and her close rival Kaliese Spencer.
Walker's microphone wasn't working. Then it was, but she wasn't using it. I caught a couple of phrases. I gathered she was "focused" for the forthcoming competition. There was much embarrassed laughter, and then it was all over.
Time passed.
Now we were getting to the business end of the schedule with the appearance of the three other Jamaican men due to run the 100 metres along with the defending champion, who was to be the coup de theatre – Nesta Carter, Yohan Blake and Asafa Powell.
But Asafa was not there. Instead, there was Michael Frater. Story.
"Asafa couldn't be here today," our MC trilled, before engaging the first of three very sheepish looking athletes in her own probing style. "Michael, can I ask you first – what are you hoping for from these Championships?"
Again, technical issues - I believe that is the phrase – made it difficult to make out much of the responses. But it did seem as if Frater had said something like this: "I didn't come here expecting to run the 100m, but unfortunately Asafa couldn't make it."
By now there was an unmistakeable buzz in the auditorium. Puma, the Jamaica AAA and our beleaguered MC had officially lost the dressing room. The agenda was being set by the audience.
One reporter - me, in fact – asked if Powell was fit. Startled, the moderator replied that she could not answer that question. I pointed out that I was not asking her, but the three athletes sitting in front of her who had been training with Powell. There was no answer.
Another reporter rose to ask if Frater had actually said what he appeared to have said. Again, three increasingly uneasy and silent athletes sat rigidly on their comfy sofa.
Eventually a journalist from a Jamaican TV company insisted that someone from team management simply state whether Powell was in or out.
There was a commotion, before Jackson responded that the technical committee was still meeting so there was no decision to be announced. "I can't comment," she said. "I'm not aware of that."
Now it was the world champion's turn to be put on the spot. With many-tongued rumour flying through the city – thankyou Twitter – a female Norwegian journalist asked what Bolt had to say about the fact that it was "99 per cent sure" that Powell was out of the 100m.
What was he supposed to do?
"Asafa is out?" Bolt asked, craning back in what you could only suppose was an attempt to get a steer on this one from an onlooking official. "That's the first I'm hearing about that. I can't really answer that question. I saw Asafa yesterday so I don't know."
It takes quite something to turn the arrival of Usain Bolt into a distraction from the main event, but on this occasion it was achieved.
All in all, a PR nightmare in the Dream Room.
Source: www.insidethegames.biz
