US track & field turns the corner
Sport's governing body weathers drug issue
How bad had things gotten for USA Track & Field? Craig Masback, the federation's chief executive, quoted Dickens ("Best of times, worst of times") to the membership at the annual meeting in December.
A golden week at the World Outdoor Championships in Paris had been blotted out by yet another doping scandal, and an ongoing spat with the US Olympic Committee had grown so nasty that the USOC talked about decertifying the USATF as the sport's governing body.
So when baseball's Barry Bonds and several Oakland Raiders turned up to testify along with track stars at the federal inquiry into BALCO, the Bay Area supplements lab, federation officials almost felt vindicated.
"Drugs in sports have never been a track-and-field problem or even an Olympic problem," Masback said on the eve of this weekend's US Indoor Championships at the Reggie Lewis Center in Roxbury. "It has always been a sports problem."
If track's clockers and watchers are embracing what rays of sun they can right now, it may be because more overcast days are looming. Ten American athletes, including world champion Kelli White and national titlists Regina Jacobs, Kevin Toth, Melissa Price, and Eric Thomas, have tested positive for banned drugs (all are appealing) and are facing sanctions during the next few months.
Further, both the Olympic and world men's 4 x 400 relays could lose their gold medals if international authorities conclude that Jerome Young shouldn't have run in Sydney or Calvin Harrison in Paris because of prior positives. "Without a doubt, there are going to be several months of intermittent stories about drugs," conceded Masback.
Yet, there's significant evidence that the sport's "annus horribilis" is past. The identification of the "undetectable" designer steroid THG -- and last week's banning of British sprinter (and European champion) Dwain Chambers for life from the Olympics -- likely has squelched what could have been a fresh crop of cheaters heading into this summer's Games in Greece.
"It's shown that whoever's trying to gain an edge in a way that's not proper can't do it," said Olympic sprint champion Maurice Greene, who's making his first appearance of the season here. "If anyone is trying something that people tell them can't be detected, they've very nervous right now."
And now that the USATF finally has confirmed that Young was allowed to compete after testing positive and provided the opinion of its doping appeals board to the international federation, the Olympic committee has put away its whip.
"They're doing everything we want them to do," said USOC president Bill Martin. "There was a period of tough love on our part for one of our kids that hadn't gotten the message. Now, they have."
It was doubtful, of course, that the USATF would have been decertified, particularly in an Olympic year. The USOC has done it only once, when it took shooting away from the National Rifle Association, and there is no viable track-and-field alternative. Besides, the sport has been America's medal machine since 1896, winning more than a fifth of the overall 97 in Sydney, and should be again in Athens.
For all the negative headlines during the past year, the sport has been on the upswing in the United States during the current quadrennium. Attendance at annual meets has risen -- last year's outdoor nationals at Stanford was sold out and more than 110,000 watched the Penn Relays in Philadelphia two years ago.
TV ratings are up and NBC plans seven track-and-field shows this year, three of them in prime time. "If you give people a chance to see the sport, they see it," said Masback. Old sponsors like
Which is why the ongoing drug cases have been like a stalled raincloud above the sport. "I've always said, whenever drugs are brought up, it hurts our sport tremendously," mused Greene.
Especially when the drugs are linked to top stars such as White, who won both the 100 and 200 in Paris but tested positive for the stimulant modafinil, as did five teammates either there or at the US Trials.
"I'm not complaining about how we've been treated," said Masback. "Olympic athletes benefit by being put on a pedestal by the public. We should be held to a higher standard."
The rash of purported dopers has been a nightmare for Track & Field News, the sport's bible, which in its annual rankings had to put special notation marks next to the names of athletes who were facing bans. "The damage to the sport as a whole is almost incalculable," wrote editor E. Garry Hill.
If the doping spotlight has been focused on track, it may be because the sport admitted it had a problem 15 years ago, after Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson had his Olympic gold medal taken away at Seoul, and began testing its athletes. "We invented the wheel," said Masback.
While baseball and football were foot-dragging on steroid testing (and the NHL doing none at all), US track-and-field athletes have been submitting to random, year-round testing by the independent US Anti-Doping Agency, which promptly publishes names of those testing positive.
"Track has always been first," said Masback. "We're like the canary in the coal mine. That's not going to be the case anymore. Everything will be different now, and for track, that's great."
What the BALCO case has shown is that major leaguers and NFLers apparently have been dipping into the same illicit pill bottle as the sprinters and hammer throwers. "Baseball had more players test positive for steroids last year with pre-notification than we've had in 15 years," reckoned Masback. "The mind boggles at the issues they have to face."
Though independent testing has made for embarrassing headlines when their athletes are caught, it's also lifted the burden from the USATF, which had to be cop, judge, and jury under the old system. That's what produced the Young mess and the standoff between the federation and the IAAF, the USOC, and the IOC that went on for months.
Even though Young had been identified publicly as the mystery medalist who was allowed to compete at the Games despite a doping positive, the USATF insisted it was bound by confidentiality rules that had been upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
When the federation dug its heels, the USOC brought the hammer down. "It was an unpleasant chapter in the relationship between the USATF and the USOC," acknowledged Martin. "But that's behind us. It's over."
The spat wasn't only about the Young case. The Olympic committee wasn't happy about athlete behavior, most notably the clowning of the men's 4 x 100 relay champions before and during the medal ceremony in Sydney and Jon Drummond's petulant (and lengthy) outburst on the track after being disqualified in the world 100 quarterfinals in Paris.
That will change, vowed Masback, who says Olympic qualifiers will attend an "educational session" about deportment at the team signup when they're being photographed and fitted for uniforms and will face tougher punishments for misbehaving.
After its Dickensian year, USA Track & Field can't wait to get the focus back on the road to Olympus. And the athletes would much rather talk about physics than chemistry. "I'm gonna put on a show here," Greene proclaimed yesterday. "Give y'all something exciting to see."
