Bailey–Johnson 150-metre race
[2][3] Bailey later dismissed Costas' comments as "a person who knew nothing about track talking about it with a lot of people listening"; nonetheless, the sportscaster's remarks touched a nerve.
[9][10] Some Canadians saw the American media's promotion of Michael Johnson as the "world's fastest man" as a cynical attempt to lessen Bailey's achievements.
Due to the press attention and public interest over the disputed "world's fastest man" claim, the idea for a 150-metre showdown to settle the issue got floated right away and by early September 1996 a California-based promotions company announced getting Johnson's agreement in principle for a 6 October 1996 race in Toronto's SkyDome.
[19] However, Bailey initially resisted all calls for the event to take place soon after the Olympics,[20] opting instead to compete in track meets across Europe.
[21] Back in North America, the issue was a topic of hot debate, especially in Canada where many felt that Bailey should not even entertain the idea of a 150-metre race, seeing the "world's fastest man" title as rightfully his and considering him the one with more to lose in the event of such a showdown.
[14][15] Over the coming months in the fall of 1996, several offers to stage the 150-metre event came in, the most serious of which were those by Newcastle, England-based company Nova International led by British former distance runner Brendan Foster and the one by an Ottawa-based entity named Magellan Entertainment Group, a small company that up to that point specialized in motivational seminars for corporations.
Amid much media speculation,[22][23] Magellan won the bid in mid November 1996, announcing a US$500,000 appearance fee for each athlete with an additional US$1 million promised for the race winner—a huge purse by track and field standards considering that the most lucrative one-day track meet at the time, Weltklasse Zürich, had a total budget of about US$5 million from which some 200 athletes were being paid.
[20] Though no exact date and location for the 150m race had been set, the event was officially announced by a Magellan representative, 29-year-old Giselle Briden, at a press conference held in Toronto on 18 November 1996 with both athletes present and exchanging verbal barbs.
By now well-known figures even outside of sporting bounds, both Johnson and Bailey as well as their upcoming showdown featured prominently in their countries' respective media year-end best-of lists.
Predictably, American media celebrated Johnson with the US-based news agency Associated Press voting his Olympic double gold the top story of 1996,[25] while Canadian media extolled Bailey with the country's 126 newspaper editors and broadcast news directors taking part in a vote for the top newsmaker of 1996, and choosing Bailey ahead of Chief of Defence Staff Jean Boyle's Somalia affair-induced resignation and Ontario premier Mike Harris' "Common Sense Revolution" deficit-reduction program.
[31] Amid continuous verbal sparring between the pair of athletes,[32] a made-for-TV, 150-metre race at Toronto's SkyDome was scheduled for Sunday afternoon, 1 June 1997.
Frankie Fredericks of Namibia, who was the four-time Olympic-silver medalist at 100 and 200 metres, voiced his displeasure over not being invited to the Toronto 150 m race.
[34] The undercard was announced, featuring pole vault duel between Sergey Bubka and Okkert Brits as well as a long jump competition between Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Heike Drechsler.
[35] By early May 1997, Magellan Entertainment Group (fronted by Briden and her partner Salim Khoja) was behind in paying many of the race's organizing costs, with creditors at the company's door.
A financial restructuring was required to ensure payment to Johnson and Bailey, and a bailout of more than $1 million by Cogan was necessary to pay outstanding bills.
[36] In essence, in the eleventh hour, Khoja and Briden surrendered the race over to Cogan and his associate Dennis Jewitt who was put in charge of restructuring the event's finances.
Furthermore, the undercard events suffered from numerous no shows—including the world's premier pole vaulter Sergey Bubka, forcing the organizers to come up with last-minute replacement Lawrence Johnson.
[37] On Friday, two days before the race, Bailey examined the track in SkyDome and revealed his shock at its configuration, specifically the tight radius of the turn.
Some 30,000 spectators showed up at SkyDome for the main event that featured a five-event undercard, including a performance by the Blues Brothers.
The televised event was billed as a competition for the title of "World's Fastest Man" with CBC's seasoned sportscaster Brian Williams presiding over the Canadian network's coverage and CBS deploying Pat O'Brien to Toronto to anchor the U.S. coverage of the event with Tim Ryan calling the race alongside track pundits Craig Masback and Dwight Stones.
[38]On the other hand, a dejected-looking Johnson, the first of the two sprinters to be interviewed post-race by CBS' sideline reporter Michele Tafoya in their live broadcast, explained that he pulled a quad muscle.
Asked to comment on claims that are now sure to follow about this clearly proving that Bailey is the world's fastest man, Johnson responded: "Even if I had won it, and I feel very confident that I could have, some people would've said that.
[2] Furthermore, Layden labeled Bob Costas' remarks from a year earlier (about dividing Johnson's 200m time by two in order to pronounce him the "world's fastest man") as "ignorant".
In February 1998, Bailey reportedly used part of his $1.5 million prize earnings from winning the race to organize a charter plane for his friends to be flown to his native Jamaica for the Reggae Sunsplash music festival.
