World Loses Track of a Triple-Gold Champion By Caroline Popovic in Guadeloups and Duncan Mackay in England

Appropriately, José Perec's office in Guadeloupe is not easy to find. You have to wind your way around the little back streets of Pointe-à-Pitre, the French-West Indian island's commercial capital, to locate his nondescript office next door to a bakery. The street is lined with small, old-fashioned businesses interspersed with wooden town houses, the last remaining in the city.
Perec is an entrepreneur; a tall, handsome man of around 50. Behind his desk, there is a large, framed photograph of his daughter, Marie-José. She is poised on the starting blocks. Next to it there is a poem entitled Sonnet à une Super Championne. Its first line reads: "Connaissez-vous Marie-José Perec?" The answer is a resounding no. Despite all attempts to find her, no one has any idea where the reclusive triple Olympic champion is living these days. Perec has become the Lord Lucan of world sport.
The Frenchwoman, born in Guadeloupe, spurned the chance of a historic 400m Olympic hat-trick last September when she dramatically fled Sydney in the middle of the night, on the eve of her much-hyped meeting with the Australian Cathy Freeman. Always a highly strung, volatile character, ready to explode at the smallest thing, Sydney tipped Perec over the edge.
Initially, she claimed a stalker had threatened her in her Sydney hotel room. But the hotel's security video showed no intruder and no complaint was lodged. The Australian press said Perec had fled because she was frightened of facing Freeman. "Mademoiselle La Chicken" was the headline splashed across the front page of one newspaper.
Since then, it is as if the 33-year-old has vanished into thin air. The last confirmed public sighting of her was in Singapore during her trip back from Australia, when Perec and her partner, the American 400m runner Anthuan Maybank, were questioned by police following a scuffle with a television cameraman awaiting their arrival.
Even Britain's Roger Black, whose French wife Elsa is among Perec's best friends, claims to have had no contact with her, although they, like her father, may have been instructed to keep quiet. Perec's official website, mariejoperec.com, has not been updated since October.
French newspapers have employed investigative reporters to criss-cross the globe, excitedly following up each lead only to find the trail had gone cold when they got there. Even the French sports minister Marie-Georges Buffet recently issued an impassioned plea to Perec to return home. "Marie-José has to tell us simply if she wants to continue or if she wants to stop," she said on national television. "It's her right and I think that everyone respects that. No one blames her for anything; she's respected."
Alleged sightings of her range from Black's home in Guildford to Guadeloupe. She is rumoured to be staying in Havana as a guest of Fidel Castro, at her old Los Angeles home, in her adopted city of Paris, and in Monte Carlo where she also owns an apartment. Only yesterday she was said to have been spotted shopping in Paris's expensive 13th arrondissement with Maybank. Some eyewitnesses even suggested she might be pregnant.
Her father, José, however, gives nothing away, having been sworn again to secrecy this very morning. "I spoke to my daughter today and she has instructed me to say nothing to you," says Perec Sr, albeit with a pleasant smile. "Journalists have always misinterpreted everything she says, so we are to say nothing. Even if I wanted to talk to you, I will not abuse my daughter's trust. What happened to all of us in Australia was really terrible. The whole family suffered. It was as if we were hated by the entire country.
"It was very difficult. Journalists call me all the time, they even come to my home. All I can say is I was with her in Paris a few weeks ago, and she was fine."
Perhaps the only certainty is that Perec is definitely not in Rostock, the German Baltic port where she arrived amid much publicity more than a year ago to work with Wolfgang Meier, the husband and former mentor of the East German 400m world record holder Marita Koch.
The 57-year-old Meier, who had stopped coaching shortly after German unification in 1990 and had a series of heart bypass operations, was very excited to be working with a talent as huge as Perec. In Barcelona in 1992, he had watched in awe as she strode to an imperious Olympic 400m victory and then, four years later in Atlanta, she completed the same 200-400m double as Michael Johnson. It turned Perec into France's biggest sports star. Even today she remains a bigger celebrity than any of the country's World Cup-winning footballers.
Working with Meier was supposed to be the rebirth of her career. Despite the spartan facilities and the overt racism she faced in Rostock, she initially made good progress. She was, however, beaten by Britain's Katharine Merry in her first 400m race since Atlanta - and what may turn out to be her last appearance on a track.
"I wish I knew where she was," Meier says wistfully. "I've had to put her belongings into storage because I don't know what else I'm supposed to do. I hoped she would come back and perhaps try to get ready for the world championships in Edmonton, but that is clearly not going to happen. I am as puzzled as everyone else. I would like to talk to her about it so I could perhaps understand a little more."
Jean-Claude Perrin, the high-performance director of the French Athletics Federation, has not spoken to Perec either, but he has recently received an email from her. He declines to reveal her whereabouts.
"She is in a location where she can live quietly without anyone threatening her and in total freedom," Perrin says. "She told us that we shouldn't be worried about her, that she is in good health and happy to be alive, and that we would see her soon."
The local population in Guadeloupe has a mixed reaction to their local heroine. Some say her departure from Sydney brought shame on the island. Others say she should be left alone, that she has taken enough heat from the French federation, the press and the public. "The French love you when things are going well," says one local, "but when the chips are down they turn against you."
Across the island in the village of Pointe Noire, Camille Elisabeth is assessing another group of young hopefuls. Elisabeth was Perec's first coach after she had been dropped from the local basketball team. "She was on time for our first meeting, she even got there before me," he recalls. "She took her training very seriously. While the others chatted, she trained. And from the start, she always used her head when she ran."
Elisabeth says he has no direct contact with Perec these days. But he has heard she is training again seriously, and he is hopeful that there may yet be a happy ending to this mysterious tale. "Someone who has reached her level should not stop the way she has," Elisabeth says. "I think she should go out in a blaze of glory at the world championships this autumn." But as he talks in this small, seaside community on the west coast of Guadeloupe, those games in Canada seem a long way away indeed.
(Reprinted fron the Guardian newspaper of England.)

Perec Unlikely to Compete This Year
Marie-Jose Perec is unlikely to compete this year an official from her sponsor Reebok was quoted in French sports daily L'Equipe as saying.
"I don't see her returning to running this year," said Patricia Menant. She told L'Equipe that she had been in touch with the elusive French athlete but gave no details of her whereabouts.