Champion sprinter Nicolas Macrozonaris retires
Published September 8, 2010
By Martin C. Barry "¢ NEWSFIRST
Champion sprinter Nicolas Macrozonaris retires After 12 years of struggles and rewards along the path to becoming one of Canada's top three champion sprinters, Chomedey's own Nicolas Macrozonaris has announced his retirement from the sport and the start of a new phase in his life, during which he hopes to give back to the community.
Inspired by Bailey
As the story goes, and as Nicolas himself, aged 30, also confirms, he was inspired to take up sprinting after seeing Donovan Bailey win a gold medal in the 100-metre sprint in 1996 at the Atlanta Olympic Games. His mentor and agent was another Canadian sprinting legend, Bruny Surin, who won the gold in the 4x100-metre relay also in Atlanta.
He competed in two Olympics â€" the 2000 games in Sydney and the 2004 games in Athens. Nicolas's biggest moment as a sprinter came in 2003 when he knocked off then world record holder Tim Montgomery in Mexico, making Nicolas Macrozonaris the third fastest Canadian in history behind Surin and Bailey. (This link leads to a short YouTube video documenting the moment:
http://thestar.blogs.com/olympics/2010/09/nicolas-macrozonaris-hangs-up-his-spikes-at-30.html.)
Hopes were on him
A little more than a decade ago when Nicolas was 19 and had been doing track less than two years, he qualified for the Sydney Olympics 100-metres with a stunning time of 10.19 to join Surin and Bailey who retired in 2001. At that time Bailey told the Edmonton Sun, "This is the legacy Bruny and I want to leave â€" good young people coming and running fast."
Bailey also said that after retirement he wanted to see "guys like Nicolas M who want to win." Two years later following Nicolas's stunning victory over Montgomery, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) commented: "Whether this is the young man to rescue Canadian sprinting remains to be seen." But last week, Nicolas made the announcement that all Olympic-class competitors must make eventually.
Numerous injuries
"Athletics Canada has announced officially my retirement," he said in an e-mail to the Laval News, referring to the national governing body for athletics in this country. While such announcements are normally handled by the athletics agency, the decision is usually taken by the athletes themselves. In an interview, Nicolas made no secret of the fact that numerous injuries he sustained in recent years took their toll and were the main reason.
The first point of order Nicolas wants to deal with now that his life as an Olympian is over is thanking those who provided assistance along the way. "I want to thank the community for their outstanding support," he says. "I've been around the world many, many times with this sport and it has been a springboard to becoming a better person overall. It matured me a lot as a person."
Parents were supportive
Nicolas's story is almost the stuff of a made-for-television movie with the backdrop in Chomedey. At age 18 after seeing Bailey, he entered a local track-and-field event with great expectations for himself, although by Nicolas's own admission "people around me didn't expect anything."
Still, he admits, his parents always backed him completely in a sport that can be quite expensive to support. Then after doing well in regionals and provincials, he discovered just how difficult the climb would be. There are anecdotes about Nicolas from those early years in Chomedey, about how he started training by marking off 100 metres on the street outside his home with a tape measure.
Exhausted by injuries
Events over the past two months or so finally pushed him into retiring from sprinting, "because it broke my spirit. Mentally, physically I got exhausted with injuries "¦ It was continuing injuries. I have a hamstring problem last year and this year I had a bone spur which lasted almost 12 months." The former injury affects the posterior thigh muscles, while the latter affects foot joints, limits movement and is a source of considerable pain. Nicolas was trying to recover from these when he developed an additional problem with his back and decided it was enough.
Wants to give back
Nicolas's plan now is to develop an athletics program for children and teens in conjunction with one of Laval's two school boards. "The purpose of this program is to develop the muscle coordination, agility, speed and conditioning with the young kids so that when they turn 15 they could enter a sport and they'll already be in a league of their own," he says. "Then hopefully they could use that sport to get a scholarship in the states and succeed academically.
