“I don’t have the fire to go out and destroy the opposition like I used,” he said. However, there was no golden glint to Gilbert’s form yesterday. He finished eighth and last in a distinctly rusty 10.66sec.Judgement will have to be deferred on whether Christie will prove true to his word – or, rather, the ones he chose five weeks ago to explain why, at 37, his major championship days are over. It was a sign of the changed times for Christie, though, that he was even in Hengelo for what was strictly a sideshow race in a second- ranking grand prix meeting.There was a time when no contest intended to decide the identity of the world’s fastest man would have excluded the great Briton. But the nearest he could get to a tilt at Donovan Bailey, the man who took his Olympic title last summer, was the nominal challenge of facing Glenroy Gilbert, who ran the second leg in the Canadian 4 x 100m relay team Bailey anchored to victory in Atlanta. It was a good job he was not caught napping on his blocks.
Christie needed every centimetre of the narrow lead he had built by the half-way stage of the 100m in the Adriaan Paulen Memorial meeting He needed a bit more too. Only the counter-thrust he made with his chest as the line approached thwarted the fast-finishing Jamaican Michael Green.

It still looked a close call, but Christie chose not to await the photo- finish verdict before embarking on a victory lap. Embarrassment was spared when his name appeared at the top of the result sheet.Both men stopped the electronic timing at 10.23sec, but Christie won the judges’ verdict over the man who was closest to him in the Olympic final, Green having finished seventh and last in the field depleted by the defending champion’s disqualification. It was far from a stroll for the retiring though far from shy speed-merchant as he stepped on to the European circuit for the first time this season, in the Fanny Blankers-Koen Stadium in this sleepy Dutch town yesterday. But Mr Cogan has provided the necessaries, and the two athletes, who each receive $500,000 before contesting the $1m prize, are said to be “comfortable” with the arrangements..

After the famous false starts in Atlanta we now have the false finish. Linford Christie, the most prolific gold medal prospector in British athletics history, has chosen to end his life in the international fast- lane not with the bang of one last shot at a major gong at the World Championships in Athens in August, but with a relative cruise to the finish line which awaits at the summer’s end. Johnson’s agent, Brad Hunt, said the meeting was in jeopardy as late as Wednesday because the promoters, Magellan Entertainment, were “stretched beyond the limit” financially. Farmer-Patrick ran in the Atlanta Olympics despite the positive test because the case had not been concluded.Slaney’s case is not yet over.