BEIJING — It remains the most arresting track and field moment I have ever witnessed live Better than either of Usain Bolt s world records this year Better than Jonathan Edwards 60-foot triple jump at G teborg Sweden at the 1995 worlds Better than Haile Gabrselassie holding off Paul Tergat to the win the 10 000 meters at the Sydney Olympics Better than the 800-meter Oregon sweep at the Olympic trials at Eugene s Hayward Field two months ago And don t get me wrong Those things — and many others — were breathtaking and memorable None of them resonates like Michael Johnson s 200-meter gold medal and generation-skipping world record of 19 32 seconds on the night of Aug 1 1996 at the Atlanta Olympic Games The gold medal came on top of Johnson s 400-meter victory fulfilling a double-gold quest he had undertaken not long after food poisoning sabotaged his 92 Olympics It came after Johnson had chased Pietro Mennea s 17-year-old world record of 19 72 seconds and finally taken it down with a 19 66 at the 96 Olympic trials The entire experience was surreal Johnson wobbled a step from the blocks ripped through the turn marginally in front of the very dangerous Frankie Fredericks of Namibia and Ato Boldon of Trinidad and Tobago and then exploded in the stretch As always spectators watched Johnson blast through the line and then turned back to the clock which froze 19 32 Not since Bob Beamon jumped 8 90 in 1968 has a time looked more incongruous It seemed at that moment — and until very recently — to be unassailable in any near future quot I remember thinking about it that night said Boldon who took the bronze medal quot And I said to myself When I die that s still going to be the record Boldon was 22 years old at the time No sprinter has come within three-tenths of a second since that night Now of course there is talk that it will happen Wednesday night at the Olympic Stadium known as the Bird s Nest when Jamaica s remarkable Bolt races in the Olympic final one day before his 22nd birthday After all Bolt has previously been a 200-meter specialist World Junior champion at age 16 and he has run 19 67 this year into a modest headwind That and the world saw how easily he ran a world record 9 69 seconds to win the gold medal last Saturday night in the 100 meters while celebrating for the last 15 meters The case can be made that Bolt is ready to take down MJ s record long before it s time In this week s I quote Jamaican-born Canadian Donovan Bailey the 84 Olympic 100-meter champion as saying quot If he gets someone to push him through the corner turn we could see something unbelievable I m thinking between 19 22 and 19 26 Bolt is already a respectable and a solid turn runner And he will have somebody to push him through the curve quot Shawn said U S 200-meter runner Wallace Spearmon referring to 04 Olympic deuce champion Shawn Crawford who always takes it out On Tuesday in Beijing I sought out and talked to the three men who landed on the medal stand in that Atlanta race Johnson Fredericks and Boldon They share an appreciation for the race skepticism that Bolt will take down the record in the Games and various levels of certain that he will get it eventually quot I think he ll run 19 5-something said Johnson who is in Beijing as Jeremy Wariner s manager quot Will he be able to sustain what we saw the other day which was incredible I just don t think he s been doing the type of training he needs to do that I put what he did the other day down to the fact that the guy has got an incredibly long stride and he s figured out how to make that long stride technically efficient quot Speed endurance is something different where you ve got to hold that speed for a much longer time and that doesn t come into play in the 100 meters Johnson said quot It becomes an endurance issue The 200 is just a different feel quot But he s run in the 19 6s already this year and he s going to run faster here said Johnson quot And now eventually does he run faster than 19 32 I think it s inevitable Fredericks was Johnson s foil in 96 having beaten him in Oslo Norway — 19 82 to 19 85 — just before the Games Fredericks was a world champion an Olympic silver medalist and a fast reliable performer And he was in a lane outside Johnson in the Olympic final quot Michael was running against somebody who had just beaten him and on a track where he had already broken a very old world record said Fredericks quot This made for very good conditions for him to run fast Fredericks and Boldon both recall that Johnson ran the turn 100 in 10 12 seconds Fredericks was close behind in 10 14 and Boldon next in 10 19 Then Johnson blew out the last 100 meters in 9 20 seconds obviously with no block start to slow him down quot We all ran an extremely good bend but Michael ran away from me in the final 100 meters said Fredericks quot Nobody else ever did that to me before in my entire career But I feel blessed and happy that I was part of such a great race Fredericks who is also in Beijing as a member of the International Committee hesitates to anoint Bolt quot At the time in 1996 I thought that Michael s record would stand for a long time said Fredericks quot It could still stand for a long time There is no guarantee Here he references Bolt s celebration at the end of the 100 meters quot I think it was a spectacular performance Fredericks said quot Most of us as track fans would have liked to have seen what he would have run if he had run through the finish I did stupid things when I was young too You think it will always be easy and you ll never have injuries and you ll always be strong and healthy But this is not the way it works You have to take chances when you have them Boldon who is in Beijing working as a sprint analyst for NBC doesn t see Johnson s record falling on Wednesday night either quot I see 19 39 40 41 something like that said Boldon Told of Johnson s prediction of 19 50-something Boldon says quot That s too slow quot I see him running the curve in 10 05 which is faster than Michael says Boldon quot But then I don t see him coming home as fast as Michael did maybe 9 35 or so That would be 19 40 and I think he ll be right around there Michael had the fear factor with Frankie in the race and that s something that Bolt definitely does not have because he s not afraid of anybody in the race Like Fredericks Boldon disapproves of Bolt s celebratory let-up in the 100 quot There was just a little too much I m better than you to the other guys he said quot I said that on air and I ve been getting hate mail from Jamaicans for three days Johnson looks at Bolt s future and sees at least two world records with a shot at a third quot It if was me I d take down the 100 even further this year Johnson said quot Because he can take that down somewhere that nobody else is going to get it for a while Then train next year for the 200 until he takes that one down Then start training for the 400 I don t know if he can run 43 18 Johnson s world record set in 1999 but he can run 44 for sure Bolt was a Jamaican champion in both the 200 and 400 in high school On Tuesday night in the Bird s Nest Bolt won his semifinal heat in a cruising 20 09 seconds Crawford worked the curve hard and Bolt eased past him just as they straightened out Spearman ran up on a slowing Bolt at the finish and afterward suggested Bolt could be caught in the final strides by a natural 200-meter specialist as had happened to him in previous seasons quot Same old Bolt said Spearmon Asked if he planned to run Bolt down Spearmon said quot Yes I ll say yes to that It should be said that Bolt himself was skeptical in post-race interviews about his chances at getting 19 32 quot I m going to run my heart out but right now it s kind of hard said Bolt quot I ve run four rounds of the 100 and now three rounds of the 200 So it s kind of hard to go out there and set the record Johnson who always approached his events scientifically says he always thought he would see his record fall The 200-meter mark was broken once in 28 years before the summer of 1996 which is much too seldom In the last three summers five runners — Bolt Spearmon Tyson Gay Walter Dix who is also in the 200 final and Xavier Carter — have broken 19 70 quot These guys have been running in that gap between the old record and my record Johnson said quot Guys should have been doing more even before they did I asked him if he thought even back in 96 if his record would last say 50 years quot Nah he said quot You can t think that People are going to keep running fast The larger point is this Twelve years ago on the floor of a track stadium that would become Turner Field a record was set that seemed it might endure at least as long as Beamon s 23 years It is remarkable to even discuss the possibility that it will not