A Long Way From Point A to Point B

The bang! you hear is a starter’s gun.

That pathetic figure stumbling out of the blocks and falling into a confused heap is me.

False start, indeed.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote here that, because she had flunked a drug test, track star Marion Jones was “busted” and “a fraud.”

Turns out, Jones was clean, and I was tainted.

This week, a second test on a different portion of the same Jones urine sample tested negative.

For one of the few times in the brief history of drug testing, the “B” sample did not support the “A” sample.

Both must be positive for the athlete to be found guilty, meaning Jones has been cleared of charges that she was using the blood-boosting drug EPO.

While I have since tested positive for that deadly journalistic drug known as “haste.”

Some say that because the EPO test is so difficult to administer, this latest revelation proves nothing.

Others say that because Jones has surrounded herself with admitted drug users and been listed in numerous pieces of drug-related evidence, she is lucky to have escaped.

I am saying neither of those things.

I am saying that, angered by this summer’s spate of drug revelations that have tarnished everyone from Olympic champions to a Tour de France champion, I rushed to judgment.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote that if Jones’ “B” sample refuted her “A” sample, I would give fallen cycling hero Floyd Landis a ride down the Harbor Freeway on my handlebars.

I am saying, does anybody know if the 110 has a bike lane?

Many other columnists around the country also condemned Jones, but that does not excuse this one.

There are many reasons the samples might not have matched, including the fact that EPO disintegrates in the specimen, but that does not excuse conviction by circumstance.

You go, clean girl. Good luck in your future races. Here’s hoping you can run faster than all that pursues you.

While Jones is sprinting off into that exonerating sunset, however, there is a larger issue rising from her dust.

Will anybody believe drug testing again?

Having finally started to police itself, is the sports world suddenly going to start siding with the crooks?

“This is a big body shot to drug testing,” said Charles Yesalis, Penn State professor and a leading steroids expert. “Not a killer blow, but a big body shot.”

It shouldn’t be.

Floyd Landis can say nothing to me from my handlebars, because he was still guilty. Justin Gatlin was positively guilty twice.

BALCO is still real, Jason Giambi is still sorry, and Rafael Palmeiro -- remember him? -- is all out of comebacks.

“The testing works, the process works,” said Dr. Robert Voy, former chief medical officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee. “What happened with Marion Jones should give everyone more confidence that it works.”

It works because it gives everyone the equivalent of six strikes. Only when they whiff the test twice are they convicted. Only when there is no doubt.

With Jones, there is doubt, there will always be doubt. And while that may prevent her from being embraced, it also prevents her from being suspended, and that works.

The testing works. The problem, it seems, is that we want it to work faster. In writing that a positive-testing athlete is dirty, I have never before waited for the results of a “B” sample.

I’ll wait now.

“I’ve never understood making the ‘A’ sample public until the ‘B’ sample is known,” said Yesalis. “We should wait for the person to be tried and convicted, and then announce it.”

In believing that scientists can eventually figure out a way to detect HGH and other sly new substances, I have also believed that all tests are created equal.

I’ll question some of those new tests now.

“In the frustration that the increasingly negative press has brought to bear, we are using some drug tests that may not be ready,” said Yesalis.

Changes are needed in the way positive tests are reported. But this does not mean there should be fewer tests.

Just because one person was wronged doesn’t mean that the entire system is wrong. The more we uncover the cheaters, the more we can believe in everyone else, witness that big kid in Philadelphia whose home runs thus far outnumber the whispers.

In order to celebrate the heroes, we need to keep chasing the dummies, even if, occasionally, I am among them.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke