Track: Freeman's grace in defeat shows up US sprint squad

In defeat in Stadium Australia last night, as in victory on the centre stage of the Sydney Olympics six days ago, Cathy Freeman succeeded in defining the spirit of these unforgettable Games of the XXVIIth Olympiad.

The woman who set alight the opening ceremony a fortnight ago and who emerged from a nation's burning expectation with a golden 400m win last Monday night finished her personal Olympic odyssey among the ranks of the also-rans – anchoring the Australian women's 4 x 400m relay team to fifth place.

In doing so, however, she brought the 110,000 crowd to its feet and struck her own blow for the "give-it-a-go" Olympians who have been fêted as heroes by the Australian public.

"I just like racing," Freeman said after tearing round the track and missing out on a second medal by 0.35sec.

"I really like trying to do the best I can. It's not just about winning. It's about trying."

It is indeed. And in defeat, a disappointingly comprehensive one for the Australians, who fancied their chances of finishing on the podium, Freeman succeeded in glorifying the concluding night of track- and-field action to a far greater extent than Maurice Greene and the rest of the victorious United States men's 4 x 100m relay team.

Greene and his three colleagues held up the start of the women's 4 x 400m final as they strutted, posed and preened around the perimeter of the track.

They continued their arrogant posturing on the medal podium and even in the press conference room, where they stood on their chairs and sang, then sniggered like schoolboys as the silver-medal-winning Brazilians answered questions.

"These guys baked the cake," Greene said at one point, turning to his team-mates.

"Jon Drummond whipped it up. Bernard Williams baked it. Brian Lewis brought it out of the oven. And I put the icing on it... Served up for you all to enjoy."

Or to throw up in the sick bucket, more like.

These clowns should have been handed another gold medal each – for the most prattish behaviour in Olympic history.

Their juvenile swaggering could not have struck a more jarring contrast to the dignified demeanour of Freeman, who accepted defeat and the loss of a hoped-for medal with the same grace as she had taken her 400m victory, a memory that will linger as the golden moment of theSydney Games.

The women's 4 x 400m relay final promised to bring a storming conclusion to the track action in Stadium Australia.

Instead, it petered out into a damp squib the moment Marion Jones grasped the baton for the United States. The

American woman's "drive for five" might have veered off course in a week dominated more by the large drugs shadow hanging over her huge husband than by the size of her feats, but she successfully completed a "spree for three" with a third-leg run that left her training partner, LaTashaColander-Richardson, with a pressure-free glory run on the final stage.

Her split time, 49.4sec, was matched by Freeman on the final leg, but Australia finished outside the medal frame, behind the United States, Jamaica and Russia.

It was the loss suffered by the United States in the women's 4 x 100m final, though, that caused the biggest relay stir of the Games.

Winners at the previous four Games, their challenge foundered with the hesitant baton exchange from Torri Edwards to Nanceen Perry.

It left Jones with too much lost ground to retrieve on the anchor leg, the 100m and 200m champion charging past Christine Arron of France to salvage bronze medals for the United States.

Ahead of Jones, history was being made.

In holding on to second place for Jamaica, Merlene Ottey became, at the age of 40, the oldest track athlete to win an Olympic medal and the first female track athlete to collect eight medals – three silver and five bronze.

And, in securing victory for the Bahamas, Debbie Ferguson completed the first track-and-field triumph in her country's Olympic history.

"The population of the United States is six billion," the Bahamian third-leg runner Pauline Davis-Thompson pointed out afterwards. "Ours is 270,000."

The Americans were suitably silent afterwards.

- INDEPENDENT