Even Winners Can’t Escape Taint of Drugs

That isn’t the Olympic flame snapping and crackling high above Sydney’s Olympic Stadium--that’s the night light next to the world’s largest medicine cabinet.

Drugs here, drugs there, drugs were nearly everywhere the Olympic track and field competition turned Wednesday as an embattled sport winced and grimaced through its worst nightmare.

One day after the meet was jarred by the news of U.S. shotputter C.J. Hunter testing positive for nandrolone, international track officials hung their heads as they hung gold medals around the necks of two athletes who had been previously banned for doping violations.

That came a few hours after they were forced to literally drag the women’s world hammer-throw champion off the field because she had failed a drug test.

Along the way, the favorite in the women’s 100-meter hurdles pulled up injured in the semifinals, hobbled into a news conference and was promptly asked if her sudden withdrawal would trigger drug suspicion.

And after a long day of trying--and succeeding--to progress through preliminary rounds in the long jump and the 200 meters, the marquee track star of these Olympics was asked how she was coping with the news of her husband’s positive drug test.

Sydney 2000 organizers would like to interrupt this convention on performance-enhancing drugs for a track and field meet, any day now, but winners, losers and also-banneds won’t let them.

More than Nils Schumann’s upset of world-record holder Wilson Kipketer in the men’s 800 or Angelo Taylor’s last-gasp dash to the men’s 400 hurdles gold, Wednesday will be remembered as the day:

* Gold medals were presented in the women’s discus to Belarus’ Ellina Zvereva, who had previously served a 12-month suspension for steroids, and in the women’s 100 hurdles to Kazakhstan’s Olga Shishigina, who sat out the 1996 Olympics while serving a two-year ban for stanozolol, the same drug that cost sprinter Ben Johnson his gold medal at the 1988 Summer Games.

* Women’s hammer-throw world champion Mihaela Melinte of Romania was ordered off the field by officials when she tried to compete in the Olympic final because two days earlier, Romanian officials were informed that Melinte had failed a test for nandrolone.

* World champion Gail Devers of the United States pulled up in her 100-meter hurdles semifinal because of hamstring trouble and was asked by reporters if her withdrawal would raise suspicion that she, too, was illegally enhanced.

“It would never be a thought that crossed my mind,” Devers shot back. “These are the Olympic Games--of course, all the news that comes out isn’t positive and things happen, but me pulling up was an injury! You can’t relate an injury to what people will speculate. That’s not fair.”

Perhaps not, but no one ever said international track and field was fair.

Not now, not with the silhouette of a doping syringe threatening to overshadow the five rings waving above Olympic Stadium.

Not even Marion Jones could outrun the topic of the day. After advancing through two rounds of 200-meter heats and qualifying for the women’s long jump final with a first attempt of 22 feet 3 inches, Jones had to field questions about Hunter, her husband, and the furor surrounding his positive steroids test.

“I have pushed everything that has happened over the last few days to the back of my mind,” Jones said. “It’s all about business now.”

Completing two 200-meter sprints in 22.75 and 22.50 seconds was a breeze, Jones maintained, compared to the controversy surrounding Hunter.

“This is where I love to be,” Jones said, motioning to the track. “I love to be out there in front of the fans. It kind of gets my mind off everything else--and there’s so much going on right now. I’ll deal with it all after Sydney.”

In the meantime, Jones is trying to win four more gold medals. Trying to block out the off-the-field events of the last two days “has been difficult,” she said. “But having my family here and having total support and getting some phone calls from people back home has helped. Overall, I think the support has been incredible. I think that’s the reason I’ve been able to get through it.

“I’ve had several friends e-mail me, saying, ‘C.J., Marion, you’re in our prayers and we believe in you 100%. Prove them all wrong. Go out there and win all your golds.’ ”

When Devers, a three-time world champion, pulled out of the 100-meter hurdles competition, it threw the final wide open--so wide that Shishigina and her drug history could sprint through to the top of the medal podium.

Shishigina won the final with a time of 12.65 seconds, just ahead of Nigeria’s Glory Alozie (12.68) and the United States’ Melissa Morrison (12.76). Alozie finished second while carrying an overwhelming burden; her fiance, Hyginus Anugo, a Nigerian 400-meter runner, was killed when he was hit by a car in Sydney a few days before the Games.

“This medal means so much to me,” said Alozie, who considered pulling out of the Olympics but was persuaded by her coach to stay and compete. “I have never been to an Olympics and in the last two weeks, it has been very difficult. It seemed impossible to do, but then I got through to the semis . . .

“I would have enjoyed it if my boyfriend was alive. But my coach and friends helped me feel happy.”

In Wednesday’s other finals:

MEN’S 800 METERS: Kipketer, the world champion and world-record holder from Denmark, hung back in the pack too long and began his customary straightaway charge too late, passing four runners over the final 120 meters but not a fifth, Schumann.

Schumann, of Germany, barely held off Kipketer’s lunge at the finish, winning the gold medal by .06 of a second--1:45.08 to Kipketer’s 1:45.14. Algeria’s Aissa Djabir Said-Guerni took the bronze at 1:45.14.

“The race I think was a little bit crazy,” said Kipketer, who admitted he would like to have those two laps to run again.

“Maybe after the closing ceremony, we can run it again,” he joked. “Just to see what could have been done.”

Schumann, the 1998 European champion, seemed more shocked by his victory than anyone in the stands watching it.

“I think most people didn’t know who I was before the Olympics,” Schumann said, “and they didn’t know how fast I could run. . . . I had a dream I could win a medal of some kind, but to take a gold is just unbelievable. I can’t believe it happened.”

MEN’S 400-METER HURDLES: Angelo Taylor maintained the United States’ pace of one track and field gold medal a day, overtaking Saudi Arabia’s Hadi Souan Somayli down the stretch for the victory.

Trailing Somayli coming off the last hurdle, Taylor hurtled himself down the straightaway and outleaned Somayli at the finish, winning with a personal-best time of 47.50 seconds, .03 of a second ahead of Somayli’s 47.53.

South Africa’s Llewellyn Herbert placed third at 47.81. American James Carter was fourth at 48.04.

Taylor won the race from the unfashionable first lane.

“When I heard I had lane one, my initial reaction was, ‘Ohh, it’s going to be a tough race. I just don’t know how I’m going to do it,’ ” Taylor said.

“Then I got focused by talking to my coaches. They helped me believe. I think it turned out to be an advantage. Usually, when I run the last 100, [the other competitors] look to me. But not being able to see me in lane one, they didn’t know where I was today. It worked to my advantage.”

WOMEN’S 400-METER HURDLES: Russia’s Irina Privalova, a newcomer to the discipline of running hurdles, upset 1996 Olympic champion Deon Hemmings of Jamaica with a personal-best time of 53.02. Hemmings, the Olympic record holder at 52.82, settled for the silver with a mark of 53.45.

Morocco’s Nouzha Bidiouane took third at 53.57.

Privalova, a 100-meter bronze medalist at the 1992 Olympics, only began running the hurdles this year. She said she made the change “because over two to three years, I was injured, but I was in good shape and then I healed. The 400-meter hurdles is an easier race. I’m not sore and it’s a little easier for my muscles.”

Hemmings was less than thrilled with her silver medal.

“It is not like the others,” she said, “but it is something.”

WOMEN’S DISCUS: Having sat out the Atlanta Olympics because of a drug suspension, Zvereva, 39, of Belarus became the oldest woman to win a track and field gold medal with a throw of 224 feet 5 inches.

German-born Anastasia Kelesidou of Greece won the silver (215-7 1/2) and Irina Yatchenko of Belarus the bronze (213-11).

UCLA’s Seilala Sua, the American champion, was 10th at 196-4 1/2.

*

Australian Jane Saville headed into the Olympic Stadium tunnel with a huge lead in the 20-kilometer walk today, awaiting the roar of a jubilant hometown crowd. Instead, she left the tunnel in tears.

Saville was disqualified in the closing seconds of the nearly 90-minute walk, allowing China’s Wang Liping to capture the gold medal. Kjersti Plaetzer of Norway won silver and Maria Vasco of Spain took the bronze.

Also today, all three American women--Karol Damon, Erin Aldrich and Amy Acuff--all were eliminated in the qualifying round of the high jump.

Saville already had been given two white warning cards, and knew a third “lifting” infraction--not maintaining contact with the ground--would warrant a red card and automatic disqualification. The woman walking with her in the final stages of the race, Elisabetta Perrone of Italy, already had been disqualified.

As she headed into the tunnel, a judge suddenly thrust a red card toward Saville. She threw her arms in the air and looked up in disbelief.

“I said, ‘No, No, not me,’ ” she said. “He said, ‘Yes.’ ”

Saville did not continue walking through the tunnel, but headed instead to a hill overlooking the stadium. Thirty minutes later, she finally entered the stadium.

“I didn’t know what to do, I was quite embarrassed--all these people waiting for me in the stadium,” she said. “It’s bitterly disappointing, I thought I was going to win the gold medal in my hometown. I was thinking this is going to be the most awesome experience of my life, and it was not to be.”

*

The Associated Press contributed to this report.