Still with a little spring in the step

As 34-year-old Roman Šebrle lines up for the 100 meters at the 12th IAAF World Championships in Berlin Aug. 19, where the veteran decathlete is in somewhat unfamiliar territory, he enters a major championship no longer as a favorite.

The Czech star has rewritten the track-and-field record books over the past decade with Olympic Gold and Silver medals, three world outdoor championship medals and an unprecedented 40 plus decathlon scores of more than 8,000 points. His 9,026 point world record performance from 2001 still stands.

While other athletes in Šebrle's position may have long since called it a career, he is not quite ready to play golf full time just yet.

"I finished with hard training 14 days ago. It was very hard training for three weeks," Šebrle said during an interview on the eve of the World Championships at his RS Sports Center in Prague 6. "There is a big chance in Berlin, because everybody, maybe five people, are all at the same level. Nobody is really a favorite. I feel the chance."

Berlin will be Šebrle's seventh world championship appearance matching the mark set by his former teammate Tomáš Dvořák. He'll also be shooting for a record fourth world championship medal (Dvořák, American Dan O'Brien and Finn Eduard Hämäläinen all have three).

Absent from the competition will be 2008 Olympic gold medalist Bryan Clay, bolstering Šebrle's medal hopes. Clay, with endorsements from Nike and Wheaties, among others, has admitted to not being 100 percent focused on competitions this year. He failed to qualify for the U.S. team with a hamstring injury at the U.S. trials in late June.

"At first, I was looking forward to going against Bryan, but I saw how much business he had going, and I thought it wasn't good for him to compete," Šebrle said. "I kind of suspected he was injured, but it's bad for the decathlon and athletics when someone is at such a high level and you can't compete with him and try to beat him."

Expected to contend with Šebrle for the medals are American Trey Hardee, young Cubans Leonel Suarez (the 2008 Olympic bronze medalist) and Yordani Garcia, as well as Belarusian Andrei Krauchanka, the Olympic silver medalist.

Šebrle is nine years older than Hardee, the eldest of the group, and, despite his disappointing sixth-place finish in Beijing, he seems more than confident.

"If I compete really well, they will be a little nervous and maybe make some errors," he said. "If we compete near the same level to the end, I think they will lose, because I will think about gold if I have a chance - not about silver or bronze - but they will just look for the podium, and that's a big difference."

At the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, Japan, Šebrle came from behind late in the competition. He tossed the javelin more than 17 meters farther than the leader at the time, Jamaica's Maurice Smith, and then remained within two seconds of him in the 1,500 meters to garner his first world title.

"Anytime he steps on the track, he is a threat. Period. I don't think I will ever look at it any other way," said Clay during a Skype interview from his home in California. "He is an unbelievable competitor. I will count out anybody else in the field before I say 'Roman doesn't have it today.' I have the utmost respect for him as an athlete, and I don't think you can ever count him out."

Last summer, prior to the Beijing Games, The Wall Street Journal conducted a sports science study with a five-judge panel. They proclaimed Šebrle the world's best all-around athlete ahead of LeBron James, American football star LaDainian Tomlinson, Roger Federer and baseball star Alex Rodriguez.

"He's mentally strong and has amazing coordination, which is especially important for the decathlon," says 1992 Olympic decathlon champion and Šebrle's personal manager, Robert Změlík. "He's an extremely talented athlete. When he plays golf, he is very good. He's playing soccer and is very good at that. This man must be like Superman: Everything he touches is perfect. That is Roman."

The world championship decathlon begins with the 100 meters at 10:05 a.m. Aug. 19 and concludes with the 1,500 meters the following evening at 9:15 p.m.

 "If I see there is a chance after the first two or three events, I will not be satisfied with only the podium. I will want to take gold," Šebrle said.

Brian Pinelli can be reached at
features@praguepost.com