Athletics: Record-breaker Montgomery in world of his own

Grand Prix finals: Fastest man on planet shocks himself and his rivals as Chambers' best is nowhere near enough

Now there can be no doubt. The world's No 1 100m runner of 2002 is a Norfolk man. In fact, Tim Montgomery – from Norfolk, Virginia – happens to be the fastest 100m runner of all time. In a 9.78sec flash in the Stade Charlety on the south side of Paris yesterday, the American with the smooth sprinting style not only settled the argument about whether he or Dwain Chambers should top the 100m world rankings this year; he also ended any doubt about who could claim to be the fastest-ever human.

Ben Johnson was the first to run the 100m in 9.79sec, at the Seoul Olympics in 1988 – albeit, it was subsequently revealed, with the assistance of the ana-bolic steroid stanozolol. Maurice Greene ran the same time in Athens three years ago, on that occasion without illegal aid, and only on Friday afternoon Montgomery was sitting in a quiet corner of the Sofitel hotel near the Charlety stadium lauding his compatriot as "the greatest sprinter to touch the surface of the earth and run in a straight line". Now, though, it is Montgomery, not Greene, who is indisputably the fastest.

As Montgomery pulled increasingly ahead of Chambers 30 metres into the showpiece race of the IAAF Grand Prix Final, surging clear to win by a metre, it was hard to say who was the most stunned in the stadium when the trackside clock flashed up the figures 9.78, with the wind-gauge indicator showing a reading of two metres per second, exactly on the permissible limit: Greene, who was watching from the main stand; Chambers, who had arrived in Paris confident of beating Montgomery for a third time this summer and of establishing himself as the new king of world sprinting; or Montgomery himself.

"I didn't see the time when I crossed the line," Montgomery confessed, an ironic smile creasing his face. "It was only when my coach picked me up and slammed me down that I realised that something special had happened. I didn't think I would break the world record here. I just wanted to show how far I could beat Dwain Chambers by and to settle all this 'No 1' argument for good."

It had been in mock-jest, the new world-record holder revealed, that he had placed a number 79 over the 89 he had been allocated for the race. "I said to my agent: 'I'll go out and run that'," Montgomery confided. In running a "78", as his performance would be known in the sub-10-second sprinting world, the 27-year-old speed merchant made his manager, Charlie Wells, a tidy bonus for the day – a cut of a $100,000 world-record bonus, the $100,000 prize for winning the the men's individual Grand Prix title, plus $50,000 for winning the race.

Wells also pocketed a slice of the $150,000 won by the women's Grand Prix winner, Marion Jones, with whom Montgomery trains under the direction of the sprint coach Trevor Graham – away from his Norfolk home, in Raleigh, North Caro- lina. The world's fastest living woman, it transpired, had played a supporting role in Montgomery's momentous run.

"I've been having trouble with my starting and Marion was helping me to sort it out in training yesterday," Montgomery revealed. "I used Marion's blocks today, leaving them just as she had set them for her race, the race before mine."

Jones, who won the women's 100m in 10.88sec, was almost lost for words as she watched from trackside. "When you see a human being run faster than you've ever seen anyone in the history of sport, it's... it's... it's just exciting to be here," she said. "I'm in awe."

Chambers left the track a picture of abject disappointment. "I came here to win," he said. "I came here to win." He did not know what to think when it was announced, amid all the world-record hysteria, that he had himself actually clocked a hugely significant time: 9.87sec.

At the age of 24, the Belgrave Harrier had equalled the British and European record Linford Christie set in winning the world championship 100m title in Stuttgart in 1993. "Oh man!" Chambers exclaimed when he heard, his facial expression caught somewhere between a wince and a smile. "I'm pleased and I'm disappointed."

"Mostly," he added after a momentary pause for thought, "I'm disappointed. I came here to win. I went out to win. And I got beaten. Running 9.87 seconds means I'm going in the right direction. I know now what it feel likes to run that fast. But I just like winning. I just couldn't understand how he was pulling away from me out there. I was giving it everything and making no impression. When I saw the clock I knew why."

Chambers now faces the equally beguiling prospect of having to end his season – a brilliant season it has been, too, with a European title, a European record, five victories against Greene and two against Montgomery – with a race against the new world-record holder at the World Cup in Madrid on Friday night.

His head-to-head record against the American stands at 2-2 this year, but nothing short of a world record by the Briton in the Estadio Comunidad would take him ahead in the world rankings Greene had led for five years – until his form deserted him on the European circuit this summer.

Not that Montgomery is some Johnny-come-lately graduate to the pinnacle of world sprinting. His time has been coming ever since, in his youth growing up in Gaffney, South Carolina, he broke his arm playing in a high-school football match and his mother urged him to take up a safer sport. As a 19-year-old, back in 1994, he ran the 100m in 9.96sec, but was denied a world junior record because the track in Odessa, Texas, was found to be 3.7cm too short. Three years later, coached by Steve Riddick, one of the leading US sprinters of the 1970s, Montgomery took the world championship bronze medal behind Greene and Donovan Bailey in Athens. After finishing sixth in the 1999 world championship final in Seville, though, he made the switch to join Graham's sprint group – and started to fulfil all the high-speed promise of his junior days.

It was clear last summer that he was emerging as the natural heir to Greene. He beat the Olympic champion in a race in Eugene, Oregon, finished second to him at the world championships in Edmonton, and moved to joint second place on the world all-time list, clocking 9.84sec in Oslo in a pair of spikes borrowed from Jones when his luggage failed to arrive.

By the start of this season Montgomery was telling anyone who would listen that he was ready to overhaul Greene and break his world record. Indeed, he said in these pages in June: "I have studied Maurice's first 30 metres, Carl Lewis's second half, mixed the two together and now I have come up with the biggest package. I am just waiting for everything to come together, like baking a cake. I know I am going to see 9.7sec. It's just a question of where I'm going to see it."

He saw it here, yesterday. So did the rest of us in a disappointingly small 12,000 crowd – Maurice Greene included. "That's the sad part for me," Montgomery said, "that Maurice was sitting in the stand and not out on the track. He knows what my quest has been. He knows I've been working three years with my coach to chase him down, to get up to him. He knows how much it means to me to beat him. I didn't want to have any questions when I became No 1.

"To me Maurice Greene is the strongest 100m man I ever, ever faced in my life. The only person I have not faced and beaten is Ben Johnson. I've beaten Carl Lewis. I've beaten Donovan Bailey. I've beaten Frankie Fredericks. I've beaten Bruny Surin. I've beaten anyone they said was great, except for Ben Johnson."

But yesterday, in 9.78sec of sporting history, the Norfolk man did the next best thing. He beat the tainted time that has stood as the human speed limit since the days of big bad Ben.

100m Evolution

Tim Montgomery (Sept 2002) 9.78sec
Maurice Greene (June 1999) 9.79sec
Donovan Bailey (July 1996) 9.84sec
Leroy Burrell (July 1994) 9.85sec
Carl Lewis (August 1991) 9.86sec
Leroy Burrell (June 1991) 9.90sec
Carl Lewis (Sept 1988) 9.92sec
Calvin Smith (July 1983) 9.93sec
Jim Hines (October 1968) 9.95sec
Armin Hary (June 1960) 10.0sec
Willie Williams (August 1956) 10.1sec
Jesse Owens (June 1936) 10.2sec
Percy Williams (August 1930) 10.3sec
Charles Paddock (April 1921) 10.4sec
Donald Lippincott (July 1912) 10.6sec