Yet Another Spike in Heart of Track

Evelyn Ashford ruled the women’s sprints before giving way to Florence Griffith Joyner, who gave way to Gail Devers, who gave way to Marion Jones. Something they all had in common besides their magnificent speed was that they seldom went to the starting line in a major championship certain that they would beat Merlene Ottey.

For the two decades that Jamaica’s Ottey competed at track and field’s highest levels, she never could call herself the best. But she was always running right behind women who could.

In five Olympics, she never won a gold medal. Only twice in six outdoor world championships between 1983 and ’97 did she win individual gold medals, once controversially in the 200 meters in ’93 when Gwen Torrence was disqualified for running out of her lane.

But beginning with Ottey’s third-place 200-meter finish in 1980 in Moscow, where she became the first Jamaican woman to win a track and field medal in the Summer Games, she stood on the podium 34 times in major international meets--seven times in the Olympics and 14 times in world championships.

She won 57 straight 100-meter races during one stretch. She ran that race in less than 11 seconds 64 times. The only women who have ever run it faster than her best, 10.74, are Griffith Joyner and Jones.

“Sometimes I just see my life as a miracle,” she said a couple of years ago. “I’ll have to see if this miracle continues.”

She planned to run next summer at the Olympics in Sydney, Australia, four months after her 40th birthday.

If you’re wondering about the use of the past tense, it is because her remarkable career presumably came to a close Wednesday in an all-too-unremarkable fashion for her deeply troubled sport.

After the International Amateur Athletic Federation confirmed that she tested positive six weeks ago for the anabolic steroid nandrolone and faces a possible two-year suspension, she withdrew from the World Track and Field Championships, which are scheduled to begin with an opening ceremony here Friday.

Ottey, who was expected to run on the first day of competition Saturday in the initial two rounds of the 100 meters, released the standard statement proclaiming her innocence.

“I owe it to my family, my country, my beloved sport and all my fans around the world to prove that this is a terrible mistake and that I will do everything in my power to find the truth and prove my innocence,” she said.

If form holds, she will deliver another statement soon offering an excuse for the discovery of a banned drug in her system. We have heard all kinds. U.S. sprinter Dennis Mitchell was said to argue that his positive test for excessive testosterone was caused by too much drinking and sex.

USA Track & Field officials even bought it, enabling Mitchell to compete--and win--the 100 meters in this summer’s national championships. The IAAF has since overturned its decision and sent him to the sideline until next April.

Those who know the classy Ottey can only hope she has a more plausible explanation. The recent surge in nandrolone positives--10 in recent months, four in track and field--has caused some to suggest that perhaps the substance is a hidden elixir in an herbal remedy popular among athletes. Maybe she is one of the rare athletes who has been unfairly accused of steroid use.

But it is more likely that she is just another athlete seeking an illegal edge.

That conclusion cast a pall over those in the track and field world even as they began to gather in festive Seville. Injuries robbed the championships of sprinters Ato Boldon and Donovan Bailey and pole vaulter Sergei Bubka, and drug tests now have taken out high jumper Javier Sotomayor, Mitchell and Ottey.

Nothing, however, should shock them any more. The sport has coexisted uncomfortably with drug use and the suspicion of drug use since even before Ben Johnson tested positive for a steroid during the 1988 Summer Olympics.

There is an obvious solution. Some, primarily promoters, agents and sponsors whose thankless task it is to market track and field and its athletes, have suggested eliminating testing for steroids and other performance enhancing drugs.

That’s because they’ve been watching baseball, which is thriving despite the revelation last season that its most prolific home run hitter was using a substance that would have gotten him kicked out of his sport if he were a shotputter. Not only were most fans not repulsed, there is evidence that those among them interested in body building rushed down to their local vitamin stores to buy the stuff.

If there were no steroid tests in track and field, what would Ben Johnson be known as today?

An Olympic champion and world-record holder.

That solution, however, is too simplistic, ignoring the potential dangers associated with steroids. If an athlete cares so little about his health that he will use the drugs, we shouldn’t particularly care about it either. But we should care about athletes who don’t want to take the risk but feel they are already behind at the starting line unless they do.

Even with steroids banned in their sport, track and field athletes are confronted with that dilemma. Boldon said recently that drug use is as pervasive in the sport as it was a decade ago. But even though track and field officials are losing the war, they should be encouraged to continue the fight.

Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com.