Palo Alto, California, June 22: Tim Montgomery was widely tipped to win the race but a bad start almost cost him his place at the World Championships. At one point Montgomery thought it was all over. He says "I just put my head down and closed my eyes and ran". His resolve was enough to take second place and to qualify for the all important World Championships in Paris in August. Bernard Williams took the ribbon and says he won because he "just reacted well, just made a good transition and just basically maintained the top end". Montgomery may not have won, but says he's relieved to have qualified for the World Championships because "this is the biggest race you can face in your entire career, the Olympic Games, World Championships are nothing like the US trials because if you don't get past here you don't go". There had been off-field banter between Maurice Greene and Tim Montgomery all week. The rivalry between the two athletes began when Montgomery took the 100 meters title off Greene and now Greene wants it back.

As defender of the World Championship 100 meters title Greene can bypass the qualifying rounds, but there appears to be little love lost between the two men.

Greene watched the 100 meters and said he'll "go back and break the races down and look at them and then see what each person did wrong, see what they did correctly and capitolise on some of the mistakes that they made".

Montgomery has other important events on his mind too, he and Marion (Jones) are expecting a baby and couldn't stop grinning as he told the news conference that "Marion just went to the hospital yesterday and the baby is 7lbs already".

Michael Johnson said he's not surprised that the race didn't go the way everyone thought it would. He says "Tim hasn't been running great this year, he's running well but he's not running great, he hasn't been consistently running well so that leaves the door open and there's a lot of guys waiting so when you leave that door open, there's a lot of guys waiting to take that spot".

The 2003 USA Outdoor Championships will end on sunday, June 22, 2003.

Bureau Report