Track's new stars ask fans to believe in them again

Stellar field?

Check. The entry list for Sunday's Adidas track classic in Carson starts with 400-meter specialist Jeremy Wariner, twice an Olympic gold medalist and twice a world champion. It includes Jenn Stuczynski, the American women's pole vault record holder, and boasts seven of the world's top 10 female 100-meter runners.

Something at stake?

Check. It's a chance for runners, jumpers and throwers to work on starts, finishes, drives and technique and advance along the path they hope will lead to the Beijing Games.

Weather?

Clear and sunny, with a predicted high of 90 degrees.

And the Lakers won't be playing.

The attendance Sunday at the Home Depot Center will be something of a referendum on track and field as a spectator sport here -- and maybe nationally, too.

Outside of singular events such as the Penn and Drake Relays, track has been dying at the box office the last 20 years, losing sponsorships, TV coverage and credibility as its stars became ensnared in doping scandals.

When NBC asked the International Olympic Committee to change the Beijing schedule to permit live broadcasts of a marquee event during prime time in North America, the sport it requested be switched was swimming.

Swimming, gymnastics and beach volleyball will be seen at the most favorable times. Track and field is likely to be shown on a delayed basis.

Track's tribulations are its trials -- not the contests that will determine who competes in Beijing but the proceedings that have taken place in courtrooms.

While Marion Jones sits in a Texas prison serving a six-month sentence for lying to federal investigators about her drug use, the perjury trial of her former coach, Trevor Graham, is scheduled to begin Monday in federal court in San Francisco.

"I hope it's done with after this trial, that it's all shut down and they show there are clean athletes out there," Wariner said Thursday at a news conference in Carson.

The trial may produce more doping allegations. Angel Heredia, a former trainer who is expected to be the main witness against Graham, has claimed he sold banned performance-enhancing drugs to Sydney 100-meter gold medalist Maurice Greene.

Greene never failed a drug test, but Jones didn't, either.

The cheaters have always been ahead of the testers, and that's the wrong race for this sport to lose.

Members of this young and already remarkably accomplished generation are putting their reputations on the line to show they won't follow their predecessors down the road to ruin.

Tyson Gay, who won the 100 here last year in a wind-aided 9.79 seconds, said Thursday he is part of a voluntary project run by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency in which he provided baseline blood and urine samples and undergoes frequent testing to prove he is not doping.

"It's unfortunate that we have to face the problem and I hope that everything changes around," said Gay, who plans to run the 100-200 double Sunday.