Manchester 2002: Fredericks' story set to run and run

The old lion of Africa will do a double-take when he comes face to face with Lambert the cub

When Frankie Fredericks lines up in the City of Manchester Stadium in three weeks' time he could be excused for feeling somewhat out of place. The Commonwealth's fastest ever man happens to be a fan of Manchester United. Well, he would be, the cynical might suggest, coming as he does from the south-west African country of Namibia. But Fredericks is sufficiently devoted a Red Devil to be fully aware that the red carpet of track laid out for Manchester's Commonwealth Games will soon be lifted up to make way for Manchester City's new pitch.

"Yeah, I know that," he said, laughing at the prospect of making a mark in a stadium that already has its seats painted in the sky-blue City colours. "Maybe Old Trafford is better, but it will be nice for me to come to Manchester. I have been a United fan for many years. I watch all their games."

Fredericks certainly knows his football. He was a brilliant centre-forward in his youth – good enough to earn national junior colours. As an athlete, though, he has been one of the world's most brilliant sprinters ever.

He has run 100m in 9.86sec. Only five men have run faster: Maurice Greene (9.79), Donovan Bailey, Bruny Surin, Tim Montgomery (all 9.84) and Leroy Burrell (9.85). And only the one-time Superman of the track, Michael Johnson, has run quicker over 200m. Fredericks clocked 19.68sec behind the American's world record 19.32sec run in the Atlanta Olympics six years ago.

Fredericks always has been a remarkable runner, not least for the eye-catching elegance with which he manages to harness his speed and power on the track. It should be no great surprise, then, that he is back at the top of the sprinting charts at the age of 34, after three years of injury troubles.

Nobody has run faster at 100m in 2002 than the 9.94sec Fredericks clocked in the Namibian capital, Windhoek, in April. And no one has run a faster 200m at sea-level this year than the 20.07sec he recorded at Villeneuve d'Ascq, on the outskirts of Lille, three weeks ago. At Sheffield a week ago it was clear that the old 200m master was back to something approaching his best. Gliding round the bend ahead of Dwain Chambers, he kept enough in reserve to resist the charge of the in-form British 100m specialist in the final 30m.

The 200m gold in Manchester is clearly Fredericks' for the taking, though he may yet decide to concentrate his efforts on challenging Chambers and Mark Lewis-Francis for the 100m crown instead.

"I've got a Commonwealth 200m gold medal already," he said. "I don't have a 100m gold, so it might be best to try for that one. But maybe it will be easier in the 200m. In the 100m if I have a bad start it could be over. In the 200m I have a lot of experience and confidence. I know that if I want to do it I can. I really don't know what I'm going to do. I'll have to sit down and look at the schedule and see if I can do both. I just hope that I can stay healthy, so I can race these young guys in Manchester. The Commonwealth Games is important to me. It's a major competition."

Few athletes have greater experience of big competitions than Fredericks. Back in 1991 he finished second to Johnson in the world championship 200m final in Tokyo. Since then he has won three more world championship silver medals and four Olympic silvers and struck 200m gold at the 1993 world championships in Stuttgart and at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria.

It is three years, though, since Fredericks last ran in a major championship. He was already suffering from Achilles tendon trouble when he competed in the 1999 world championships in Seville. He scratched from the 100m after qualifying for the semi-finals and withdrew from the 200m final before the start.

"The last three years have been horrible," Fredericks reflected. "I've had two operations on my Achilles, which ruptured twice, and I've spent a lot of money on my rehabilitation. Now I just want to make sure that the time and the energy that I spent staying in the cold in Helsinki for months was not for nothing.

"My manager is from Finland. That's why I went there. He's got the connections. I'm African. I don't have the medical back-up like everybody else. It cost me a lot of money."

It will probably cost Fredericks a lot of money to run in Manchester too. He paid his own way to run for Namibia at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria and at the 1998 Games in Kuala Lumpur and he is prepared to dig into his pocket again this time. "That's no problem," he said. "If my country has bigger priorities to attend to, then paying for my travel and accommodation isn't a big deal. I understand the sacrifices that have been made to make my country free and to feed its people."

Fredericks certainly knows about hardship in his homeland. He grew up in Katutura, a black township of Windhoek, in the days when the region was part of South Africa and subject to apartheid. He was raised by his mother, Riekie, who simultaneously held down three jobs to afford an inside toilet for their home.

Through his academic excellence, Fredericks gained a high-school scholarship and a job as a trainee manager with a uranium mining company. Through his burgeoning athletic excellence, he was given the opportunity to study and train at Brigham Young University at Provo, Utah. He still works for the Rossing Uranium Mine, who part-funded his college education in the United States.

To his fellow countrymen, Fredericks is regarded as more precious than the precious metal that happens to be Namibia's richest natural resource. They call him "Frankie Namblitz" and this afternoon he will be attempting to blitz the opposition in a 100m race in Rethymno, Greece.

Beyond that, he has a 200m race planned in Tallinn on 21 July and then, he hopes, another fling at the furlong distance in Manchester. It might be true that no one can bend a ball like Beckham but, certainly, no man can run a bend quite like Frankie the Man U fan.