Athletics: Engquist extends the boundaries

WHEN LUDMILA ENGQUIST crossed the finish line in the Estadio Olimpico last night she had cleared 10 2ft 9in barriers. She has yet to overcome her biggest hurdle, though. Having gone from a bed in a cancer ward to the World Championship medal podium in four months, the inspirational star of Sevilla 99 will carry home with her hope of winning the battle for life.

More than one winner emerged from the final of the women's 100m hurdles. The American, Gail Devers, herself no stranger to life-threating illness, having recovered from Graves' Disease eight years ago, won the race in 12.37sec - and with it her third title in the event and a record fifth World Championship gold medal for a woman. But Engquist won her battle to prosper in the international fast lane while suffering from cancer.

It was little wonder that Devers insisted she joined her on a lap of honour. Third, behind the Nigerian Glory Alozie, in 12.47sec, Engquist equalled her Swedish record but broke the perceived boundaries of what cancer patients can achieve. As her doctor, George Engel, confessed: "I did not believe what Ludmila has done was possible. She is forcing us to change our perception of how cancer can be tackled."

The mastectomy Engquist underwent four months ago failed to remove all of the cancerous cells that had been detected in her right breast in March. On Thursday she returns to the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm for another course of chemotherapy. "The future is not looking that good for me," she said. "I just live for the day now, and for the challenges. It is enough simply to be here and to be alive."

Though she was wearing a yellow vest instead of a yellow jersey, Engquist's medal success story is an inspirational tour de force in the style of the American cyclist Lance Armstrong. When she was first informed of her illness, the Russian-born Swede, who is a 35-year-old mother, said she "just wanted to die". Instead, she has battled on - and up to the World Championship medal podium.

She refuses to take pills which might relieve the pain and sickness caused by chemotherapy. Yet in Seville she has regained the form that took her to the world title in the colours of the Soviet Union in Tokyo in 1991 and to Olympic and World Championship gold as a naturalised Swede in 1996 and 1997. "I'm so proud of Ludmila and what she has done," Devers said. "To come back and race like this is fantastic."

It was not a good night for Britain in the Stadio Olimpico as the men's and women's 4x400m relay teams, paying the price for saving Mark Richardson and Katherine Merry for the finals, suffered knock-out blows in the qualifying round heats.

It was a mixed night for the Spanish, too, even though the capacity 60,000 home crowd cheered their runner Abel Anton to victory in the marathon.

The former slaughterhouse worker made mincemeat of the opposition, easing into the lead with less than three miles remaining and crossing the line 27 seconds clear of the Italian, Vincenzo Modica, in 2hr 13min 36sec. In doing so, the 36-year-old not only retained the title he won in Athens two years ago, but also stirred the controversy set raging on the morning of the race by claims of systematic use of the banned drug erythropoeitin within the Spanish marathon squad. Pablo Sierra told the French daily sports paper L'Equipe of how he had been invited to use EPO - the drug which boosts an athlete's red blood cell count and is undetectable by normal tests - after winning the Minneapolis marathon in 2:11:45 five years ago.

"I was very quickly made to understand that to make it into the national team I would have to 'prepare' like the others," Sierra said. "That is to say to follow a programme based on EPO. When I refused the national marathon coach said, 'without this you can never beat the world champions of our country. If you do not take this you can never be as quick as them'."

Last night in Seville no one was as quick as Spain's world champion marathon runner - on the roads or on the back foot. "I don't know the athlete," Anton said. "There are no comments."