(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-01-30 11:03

SALVO, North Carolina - Olympic and world 400 metres champion Jeremy Wariner and his long-time trainer Clyde Hart have severed their coaching relationship because of a contract dispute, Hart said on Tuesday.

Reigning world and Olympic 400-meter champion Jeremy Wariner, pictured in 2007, has split from coach Clyde Hart in a contract dispute barely six months before the Beijing Olympics, the famed athletics mentor said Tuesday. [Agencies]

"The contract (offer) was significantly lower than what I had gotten in the previous three years," Hart told Reuters in a telephone interview from Waco, Texas, where he coaches. "I couldn't in good faith sign it.

"He has won everything out there and I just could not understand why there would be a cut in my pay," Hart added.

Hart, best known for coaching Michael Johnson to world records and Olympic and world gold medals, had been Wariner's coach for the last five years.

Wariner won the 2004 Olympic gold medal and 2005 and 2007 world championship titles under Hart, is the odds-on favourite for Beijing this year and has been hailed as the person who could break Johnson's 400 metres record.

I think he will (win in Beijing)," Hart said. "He's that good an athlete."

Hart declined to say who would be Wariner's new coach.

Neither Johnson, who is Wariner's agent, nor Wariner's manager Deon Minor returned calls to their mobile phones.

"I am not mad at anybody, I'm just disappointed in a lot of people," Hart said.

"I plan on having an Olympic champion in Beijing and I am just going to go on from there," Hart said, noting he would continue to coach the world's top-ranked female 400 metres runner, Sanya Richards.

Hart declined to say whether the dispute would affect his relationship with Johnson, who set the world 200 and 400 metres world records and won gold medals at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics while working with Hart.

"I have not had any conversation with Michael on this," Hart said.