US athletics plunges to new low

TO SAY that the US is bracing itself is overdoing it because, when it comes to track and field, it sometimes seems that the country is beyond caring.However, the trial that began in a San Francisco federal courtroom overnight has the potential to deliver a blow of unfathomably damaging proportions.
Trevor Graham, one of the most successful coaches in history, is on trial for perjury, for allegedly telling federal investigators that he had never supplied banned substances to his athletes. Given that 10 of his charges, including Marion Jones, Justin Gatlin and Tim Montgomery, have been suspended or disciplined for doping offences, his position would seem an unenviable one.
The real mess, however, lies in the testimony of the next few days as both the prosecution and defence have suggested that an A-to-Z of new, unknown drugs cheats may be named and shamed in court. The stats, as they appeared in The New York Times last month, are terrifying, with the prosecution's star witness, Angel Heredia, a Mexican former discus thrower and confessed supplier of performance-enhancing drugs, claiming to have the evidence to bring down 12 athletes who between them won 26 Olympic medals and 21 world championships.
Of those 12, apparently, eight had not been previously linked to doping. As a taster, Heredia threw in one of the biggest names of all, Maurice Greene, which means that four of the past five Olympic 100m winners have thus been besmirched (Ben Johnson, 1988; Linford Christie, 1992; Greene, 2000; Gatlin, 2004). Greene has denied any wrongdoing, but only Donovan Bailey (1996) has a reputation that is intact.
With the next Olympics on the horizon, it goes without saying that this is hardly a good time for athletics to be mired in another scandal. It does not help much, either, that Montgomery was sentenced last week to 46 months' prison for cheque fraud or that he is still facing charges of trafficking heroin, or that Gatlin, who has twice failed dope tests, will be in court arguing his right to run in Beijing. How the mighty have fallen.
All of which may explain why the US, where the interest dial in track and field has always been pretty low, appears to be close to switching it to off. One indicator is that NBC, the Olympics broadcaster, lobbied for the Beijing Games schedule to be rejigged, with swimming and gymnastics moved to the morning so that they could be shown live in the US. Athletics, traditionally the blue-riband event, was not a priority.
Meanwhile, in a Los Angeles suburb on Saturday, there was an athletics meeting featuring a stellar cast, yet the Los Angeles Times weekend edition failed to credit it with a single word. The names on show included Tyson Gay, the double world sprint champion, and Jeremy Wariner, the finest quarter-miler on the planet, both of whom filled their pre-meeting press conference not only by sharing the kind of hopes for an Olympic year that you might expect of young men with the world at their feet, but also by urging the public not to give up on them.
"Believe in us again," Wariner said. "We are clean. There's a lot of clean athletes out there."
Yet while this new generation may indeed be cleaner, they are paying for their forebears' misdemeanours. A broad hope among these young stars is that the Graham trial will represent a final drawing of the line, an opportunity to put the past to bed. As Wariner said: "I just hope it is done with after this."
Anyone with an affinity for the sport would share that hope, but it may prove a slim one. If the evidence in San Francisco does unmask another cast of drugs cheats, the lead-up to Beijing - and beyond - will be filled with recriminations, the redistribution of medals and the rewriting of history. Athletics these days is a sport in which medals are won and lost in court and it would be nice if, in China, we could revert to distributing them from a trackside podium.
Much may depend on the presiding judge, Susan Illston. Graham is charged with perjury - he faces up to 15 years in jail - and it is for Illston to decide how relevant is a new list of allegedly transgressing world champions. If she judges that names are appropriate, then both sides have declared that they have ammunition aplenty. Heredia is promising to bring down some of the sport's greats. Graham said: "There's going to be a lot of publicity on a lot of people's parts who did a lot of things behind closed doors. It's all going to be dragged out in front of the whole world. It's going to embarrass the US and it's going to embarrass these athletes."