It was a moment Fani Halkia described as magical, and how could have it been otherwise? Here was a Greek athlete winning the 400-meter hurdles, cheered on by a sellout crowd whose encouragement made Olympic Stadium rock.
Magic seemed part of Halkia’s story well before Wednesday night, for no one could have predicted that a 25-year-old woman with a long and unimpressive history in the sport could have improved her time in the event by nearly four seconds in the last year.
“Would I have guessed before the Olympics she would be the champion? No,” said Brenda Taylor of the U.S., who was seventh.
The same could be said of women’s 100-meter champion Yulija Nesterenko, 25, of Belarus, and 100 hurdles champion Joanna Hayes, 27, of the U.S. Both also made substantial improvement in their most recent of many years in the sport.
Nesterenko went from a 2003 best of 11.45 to break 11 seconds four times in the Olympics, topped by a national record 10.92. Hayes went from 12.83 last year to an Olympic-record 12.37 in Tuesday’s final.
Halkia’s personal best before this season was 56.40 in 2003. Her other two times last year were over 57 seconds.
After a national record of 52.77 seconds in the semifinals, Halkia had a runaway victory in Wednesday’s final with a time of 52.82. Ionela Tirlea-Manolache of Romania was second in 53.38. It was the largest Olympic victory margin in the event since 1984, the first year the women’s 400 hurdles was on the Olympic program.
“I tried to work extremely hard,” Halkia said. “After a year of very hard work, you can do under 53 seconds. If you know anything about athletics, that goes without saying. Of course you can improve that much.”
Halkia’s history has other elements to create more doubt.
Her coach, George Panayiotopoulos, was a sprinter who trained with Christos Tsekos, the coach who is at the center of Greece’s version of the BALCO doping scandal.
Tsekos has coached sprinters Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou, who withdrew from the Olympics after missing at least three drug tests. Greek investigators reportedly have found steroids in supplements seized from a warehouse Tsekos uses.
A respected Greek newspaper, To Vima, reported Tsekos had asked the government for $6 million to develop a training program for 150 athletes that would include performance-enhancing drugs. The government did not buy it.
“I never worked with Mr. Tsekos,” Halkia said. “My coach had a lot of different coaches. He worked with Mr. Tsekos, and he stopped. There is no connection, clearly.”
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Halkia later gave an impassioned defense of Kenteris and Thanou that created a connection between them and her.
“It want to stand by Kostas and Katerina,” Halkia said. “It is a real shame to point the finger at someone for no reason.
“I know how much they trained. We sort of lived together at Agios Kosmas (the national training center). I know how hard they worked. I was there. I witnessed it. There is no positive drug test to prove anything. It is a shame.”
The BALCO case has uncovered the dirty little secret that tests don’t catch all the cheaters because many drugs are undetectable, and some can be masked by other drugs.
Halkia, a former journalist, said she expected accusations about her coach in the current climate of suspicion created by the Greek media about Kenteris and Thanou.
“All Greek athletes need are a Greek soul and a lot of hard work to come first,” Halkia said.