Clutching what promises to be his first of many World Championships medals, Wallace Spearmon was the picture of nerves last August in Helsinki.

Happy to have made the podium less than six weeks after claiming the NCAA 200m title the then 20-year-old signalled his arrival on the world stage in dramatic fashion. Only nobody had taught him how to prepare for the sombre medal ceremony.

"Actually it was kind of funny," he remembers laughing, "(John) Capel and (Justin) Gatlin were there and all I could think of was 'don,t mess up, don,t mess up.' I was extremely nervous. I was sweating and they were talking to me the whole time trying to keep me from doing anything silly. I saw a picture afterwards and I had the medal in the wrong hand."

Having claimed the silver medal behind Olympic champion Justin Gatlin, the University of Arkansas student decided that he has it in him to become the finest 200m sprinter in the world. A victory in the London Grand Prix meeting July 27th with a personal best time of 19.89 seconds - the fastest time in the world last year - was most encouraging and Gatlin will surely have to be at his peak to hold him back next time.

"I have raced (Gatlin) time and time again and it seems to always be the same outcome," Spearmon says laughing again. "Being a champion he knows how to win. He won the Olympics at both 100 and 200m. He is one of the greatest in history so even to get second to him was a great honor. Even though I am not planning on having that same outcome for years to come. I am hoping to change that."

Growing up in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where his father, Wallace Spearmon Sr., was an All-American sprinter for the Razorbacks, he played football and basketball. Track was not even in the picture. Given his father,s success there it was expected that the son would follow his father,s footsteps. The son had other ideas.

"I kind of wanted to get out of Fayetteville," Wallace Jr. reveals with a laugh. "I wanted to go and play football but I found out rather quickly that I wasn,t too much of a football player I guess. I got letters from schools but track found its way back into the picture. I can,t complain about it."

Around this time he and his friends started hanging out at Chad's Barber Shop, an enterprise owned by Chad Brown where he would play dominoes and listen to the barber espouse words of wisdom. The only rules were there was no smoking, no drinking and no cussing! Though he had seen his own father compete and he remembers Carl Lewis and Florence Griffith-Joyner, it was the barber who challenged him.

The pair went to a track meet one day and Spearmon was filled with ambition.

"I am a big sports fanatic and he used to come to the shop all the time and argue with me," Brown explains. "He was hung up on football. Then he came to the shop all the time. There was a guy named Chris Baker who was the fastest guy in Arkansas at the time, and Wallace claimed he could outrun Chris Baker. I said he couldn,t do it and he did it. The next year Wallace ran track and went and broke all the state records."

"He has been coming here for abut four or five years, more than just an hour. Sometimes he hangs out all day long and gets on my nerves. I am more of a mentor for him. We talk about everything - women, sports, what he should do with his money. He asks me every question you could think of."

Still, hardly a day goes by without a visit to Chad's.

With head Razorback Coach John McDonnell's blessing Spearmon turned professional last summer electing to join Flynn Sports Management, a prominent agency owned by Irishman Ray Flynn. He signed an endorsement contract with Nike and started picking up prize money at a few European meets.

Says McDonnell: "How can you argue when a guy can make $500,000 a year? The only thing I told him was he should stay in school and finish his degree." The athlete took his coach,s advice and is continuing his kinesiology studies hoping one day to become a track coach.

Though he ran the year,s fastest time it is quite possible he could have run even faster. His season was cut short when he learned his mother, who had booked a flight to see him run in Helsinki, didn,t turn up. A friend called him with the news she had been taken to hospital and is suffering from cancer.

"I sent a friend to her house because she wouldn,t tell me," Spearmon says softly. "I still don,t know what kind of cancer it is. She doesn,t like talking about it. But she is much better now; she,s back working and everything."

He lives in a modest apartment near the university track where he meets up with Razorback assistant coach Lance Brauman each day for his training sessions. The pair have lofty ambitions. Money is not the primary motivator he insists.

"I believe in myself," he says, "the sky is the limit. Everyone has (Michael Johnson,s) world record on their mind. I am not going to say I can break it or that I am going to break it next year but before my career is over, if the power is in my hands, it,s a great goal."

"I look at it like this: I am running and doing what I love and money is just coming with what I love. I never want to look at it like I am making money for running track. I love running track. I like beating people. My main focus has been outrunning other people. Track is just fun for me."

And like Johnson who excelled over 400m, Spearmon is not afraid to have a go at the one lap sprint. An indoor personal best of 46.1 was promising but his coach thinks a sub 44 second time would be attainable in the next few years.

Last summer at the IAAF World Athletics Final, Spearmon met the legendary sprinter but the conversation was not centred on half lap sprinting.

"We were talking about cars," he reveals. "He has a Mercedes and it was nice and we got a short conversation going. I was commenting on that."

Along with the time goals Spearmon is looking ahead to Beijing where he will be just 23 years old and will have another three years of international experience under his belt.

"I still won,t be in my prime then. Those years between - there,s another World Championships in 2007," he explains, "All those years will be focused on getting better for 08 - so everything I do now is focused on progressing strength wise, mechanically, everything, so in '08 I can make that team."

The sky, indeed, is the limit for this young man.