Michael Johnson column

I think Jeremy Wariner will break my 400m world record, and it will happen in the next year or two.

Since he ran 43.50 seconds a few weeks ago, it's been right there. He's been capable ever since then.

He'll continue to do little things in his race that will continue to get him closer and closer and then it will happen.

He's run 43.4 here. Had it not been for the wind in the stadium, he would have run 43.3.

It's a huge distance getting from 43.46 to 43.18 (Johnson's world record time).

The good thing is that it's a long sprint so there are lots of places where you can gain little bits of time here and there.

He showed great execution in his start.

One of the things he has been able to perfect that has really given him the consistency is getting out of the blocks as if he is running the 200.

You get up to your race speed as quick as possible because it takes a lot of energy to get up to race speed.

You don't want to spend 70, 80, 90 or 100m doing that. You want to get up to race speed at 60m and then just hold that so then you can relax.

The race was really going to be won - if he was going to run his best time - really pushing from 200m to 300m and he did that.

Since October last year he's really been doing a lot of training to increase his strength.

He was 11 seconds between 200 and 300 - that's pretty incredible. Normally you would see an athlete start to fall off and start to tie up a little bit at the end after that but he was able to hold it.

Between 200-300m is where he really turned it on.

He was extremely confident at that point because he knew he only had 100m left to go.

He knew that at 100m to go, with his training, he can hold his form and hold the others off.

Jeremy has great technique and he's got really good form.

He's generating a lot of power and downforce with his quads.

He's not a huge athlete and doesn't have a lot of upper body strength but he's able to generate a lot of power and downforce coming down the home stretch.

That propels him forward and he's able to hold his form so he doesn't falter.

When he breaks the world record, he's still going to be somewhere around 21 flat through the first 200.

It's going to really be from 200 to 300 - getting a little bit quicker there - and then be able to hold it to the end to break the world record.

Source: BBC Sport