(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-01-31 15:13

ROCKY MOUNT, North Carolina - Olympic and world 400 metres champion Jeremy Wariner will be coached by Michael Ford after parting company with his long-time trainer Clyde Hart, Ford said on Wednesday.

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]

Hart said on Tuesday that he and Wariner had parted ways because of a contract dispute.

"We haven't worked out any details yet but I have been working with him the past couple of weeks," Ford told Reuters by telephone from his office in Waco, Texas.

Ford, who worked with Wariner at Baylor University, said the athlete would continue to train in Waco at the Baylor track.

"I don't think anything is going to change much," said Ford, an assistant coach under Hart at Baylor for the past eight years. "I learned a lot under coach Hart and I think that's probably a reason Jeremy asked me to work with him."

The coach said Wariner's ambitions remained the same.

"The ultimate goal is to try to win the gold medal (at the Beijing Olympics) and do well," Ford said.

"I don't think his goals have changed because he has a new coach. We are going to shoot for the same things that he and coach Hart would have been doing."

Wariner, who will make a promotional trip to Beijing next week, will begin his Olympic campaign with two races in Australia, Ford said.

He will run a 200 metres in Sydney on February 16 and a 400 in Melbourne on February 21.