Kiwi Olympians: Chris Donaldson

By EUGENE BINGHAM

Chris Donaldson was 6 when he discovered the need for speed.

A summer's evening of backyard cricket had deteriorated into one of those typical sibling scraps. Donaldson hurled the bat at his older brother, Cass. And bolted.

"As soon as I threw it, I knew it was going to hit him, so I took off down the gravel path as fast as I could. He couldn't catch me. That was probably when I realised I was quite fast."

The realisation that he could burn off his brother, however, was no moment of celebration. He was too scared worrying about what was going to happen to him.

"I bawled my eyes out and wouldn't come home for three hours."

It was fear and guilt that propelled him on that first dash down the dusty path in Dunedin.

These days, he tests his speed against the fastest men alive on the world's finest tracks of rubber.

This month, the 25-year-old will line up for his second Olympics, racing in the glamour 100m and 200m. They are the races the globe stops for. Two billion people transfixed by this most basic of human contests: set eight men side by side and watch which one can get from A to B first. Simple.

What the world does not see are the years of training, hour after hour of work on the track and at the gym building the body's strength, perfecting the sprinting action so it becomes natural, and teaching the mind to react to the starter's gun.

Donaldson has repeated the starting routine under the instructions of coach Brent Ward thousands of times. The idea is to set his body into the perfect launch position, ensuring he is low and driving when he rockets out of the blocks.

Though his technique is being constantly tweaked, one quirk has remained from his days at Logan Park High School in Dunedin.

After the starter has yelled, "On your marks," Donaldson bites his tongue.

A friend first suggested it during a training session in form three. Not knowing quite why, Donaldson tried and has done it ever since.

The sprinter explains: "What it does for me is it gets me ready. The minute I bite my tongue, I know what is about to happen."

It is a turning-on thing. Donaldson knows he will need everything to be perfect and every ounce of effort to foot it with the likes of world record holder Maurice Greene and defending Olympic champion Donovan Bailey in Sydney. He knows a semi-finals berth is his most realistic hope.

At Atlanta four years ago, he came 42nd out of 108 in the 100m, and 47th of 81 in the 200m.

But he is not going to Sydney with the intention of trotting along in superstars' dust.

"I haven't trained as hard as I have over the years to just go there and run for the sake of it."

He is not intimidated by the presence of the elite sprinters.

"Actually, I don't even think about them being there. When I race them, I don't put them on a pedestal. Semis is something I'm really looking forward to. The 200 is my better event and a final is something I would be trying for. In the 100, anything can happen."

The fact is, Donaldson would be a modern-day wonder if he made the 100m final.

No white man has made the top eight at the Olympics since Britain's Alan Wells won gold in 1980. Nor has any white man broken 10s for the 100m. Donaldson's personal best is 10.17s at the 1998 Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games.

He is a click of the fingers away from the magical mark, but it is tough, energy-sapping terrain: if the 10s barrier is the Everest of sprinting, Donaldson is just short of the summit.

Nevertheless, it is a goal he keeps firmly in mind, regardless of his genes.

Anyway, if breeding were everything, he would probably be in the movies, not on the track: his father is renowned New Zealand film director Roger Donaldson, maker of Sleeping Dogs, Smash Palace, Cocktail and Dante's Peak.

Donaldson is happy to call Dunedin home for now, but one day he may join his father in Los Angeles.

"Dad is really keen for me to go over there and work for him. There are opportunities. At the moment, running is my main thing, but I would look at it in the future."

So could he of the chiselled chest be up on the big screen one day?

"Oh, no, I think I would be behind the camera, definitely."

For now he has enough fans. He is not particularly comfortable with his sex symbol status. Last month at the Australian Olympic track and field trials, legions of adoring fans crowded around the finish line.

As the panting Donaldson strode into the changing rooms at the end of each race, young women screamed his name and pleaded for his autograph.

Challenged about it, he blushes and giggles.

"You sure there wasn't another Chris in the race?"

Modesty becomes him. Many top sprinters cultivate their reputations as testosterone kings of the track. Not Donaldson. He is a genuine nice guy with no ego in sight.

No request is a problem. When a Sydney radio reporter realised that his interview had not recorded properly just after the 200m final at the trials last month, Donaldson happily went through the questions again.

Each week he sits at a computer answering e-mail from schoolchildren. And he is not too famous to thank his Mum for everything she has done for him.

"At school I played everything and enjoyed it, but poor old Mum had to drive me everywhere."

His mother, Susan, and her husband, Andy Barratt, remain vocal supporters.

Donaldson says he could not have got to the Olympic startline without the support of his whole family (he has three older siblings and a younger half-brother and half-sister).

"They are probably the difference between me running the Olympics and me running local club races."

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