Crear Path to Final

Mark Crear is off and running at the World Championships of track and field in Athens and he owes it all to Michael Johnson.

The Valencia resident showed his gratitude Tuesday, winning his 110-meter high-hurdle quarterfinal heat in 13.15, the best time in the first two rounds of the meet and faster than rival Allen Johnson, the 1995 World and 1996 Olympic champion, who won his quarterfinal in 13.22.

The semifinals and final are today.

“I pray that this is the right time for me,” said Crear, the 1996 Olympic silver medalist. “I’ve got more athletes than Allen Johnson to worry about. He is one of many but, in order to win, you must take everybody out.”

Crear, 28, didn’t expect to be running in the World Championships four weeks ago after he finished fourth at the USA Track & Field Championships in Indianapolis.

But Olympic 200 and 400 champion Michael Johnson missed the USA meet because of a leg injury suffered in his 150-meter match race against Canada’s Donovan Bailey, inadvertently helping athletes such as Crear.

Without Michael Johnson, track and field was faced with holding its showcase meet of the year without its brightest star.

That was unfathomable to high-ranking officials of the International Amateur Athletic Federation and they passed an amendment last month giving defending world champions such as Johnson an automatic entry into this year’s meet.

The amendment also gave Allen Johnson an automatic bid, opening a spot for Crear. In the past, athletes had to place among the top three in their country’s national title meet and exceed a minimum qualifying standard to qualify for the World Championships.

“I just thank God that I have this opportunity to run,” Crear said. “And thanks to Michael Johnson. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have gotten this chance. If he hadn’t been injured this never would have happened.”

“I look at it like I’ve been given a second invitation to the dance and now it’s time to boogie,” he said.

Crear’s biggest concern before the meet wasn’t Allen Johnson--the American record-holder at 12.92--but himself. He said he beat himself in the trials because he wasn’t psyched up to run.

“I couldn’t get my rhythm,” he said. “It just didn’t seem like there was the same kind of tension in that meet that there was at the [Olympic] trials in ’96.”

The Olympic trials were particularly important to Crear because he failed to qualify for the 1995 World Championships.

But he wound up being the No. 1-ranked hurdler in the world that year after lowering his career best to 13.02 and beating Allen Johnson in five of eight races.

Johnson has the fastest time in the world this year at 12.97, but Crear figured last week that he had a chance to win the gold medal.

“I really feel like you’re not going to see very many people step into that sub-13.10 territory,” he said. “I don’t think many people are going to do that, but I plan to be one of them.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.