She Cleans Up as Dirt Distracts

The crowd around Marion Jones is huge, probing, challenging.

“It’s a little bit about gold, but it’s more about doing your best amid one hell of a year,” she says.

The crowd in front of Fani Halkia is thick, cynical, angry.

“I can understand you wanting a scoop, but I can’t understand you getting the firing squad out,” she says.

The crowd surrounding Allyson Felix? No crowd, only a dozen or so reporters at the news conference for the 18-year-old Los Angeles kid who won a silver track medal Wednesday. On yet another night of Olympic drug innuendo, the best story was unscarred, untainted and considered uninteresting.

“I did talk to Allyson today about her diet,” says her mother, Marlean. “I was hoping she wasn’t going to hit McDonald’s up.”

A couple of folks laugh. The rest are somewhere else, distracted by the dirt.

The Olympics are still dominated by the beauty of children and their dreams.

But when the steroids win, it’s sickening.

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To understand the theme of Wednesday’s track session at Olympic Stadium, one needs only to listen.

“Ken-ter-is! Ken-ter-is!” chant thousands of Greek fans, delaying the start of an event for several minutes.

They are honoring their star sprinter, Costas Kenteris, who would have been competing in the 200 meters on this night, except for one little problem.

He was suspended for failing to show up for drug testing.

On this same night, the fans give an emotional ovation to Halkia, a countrywoman who won the 400-meter hurdles.

This same Halkia was nearly four seconds slower last summer, a generally unthinkable leap for a 25-year-old veteran.

This same Halkia is asked three consecutive drug questions at her news conference.

She says it isn’t about steroids, but soul.

“All Greek athletes need for success is a Greek soul,” she says. “For those who do not feel this, who aren’t made of the stuff of our ancestors, then that is a real shame for them.”

Did we mention that mingling amid all the fun is Marion Jones?

She has been questioned by U.S. doping officials, distracted by the ensuing attention, discouraged by some from even showing up here, and competing individually only in the long jump.

She qualifies Wednesday, but all anybody wants to know is, would she be competing today as part of the 400-meter relay, thus risking any medal won by the team if the talk is true?

The answer is yes. Even while their own enforcement agency is seeking answers from Jones -- whose former husband tested positive for steroids and whose current companion faces a lifetime ban over alleged steroid use -- she is named to the team.

“It’s about doing your best in the midst of vast chaos,” Jones says.

If this team does lose a medal because of doping problems, the U.S. track officials who made this decision should have to pass a baton to the unemployment line.

You know whom they could have chosen, right?

But like many others Wednesday, they forgot about Felix.

The graduate of Los Angeles Baptist School in North Hills is an infusion of sweetness on a night already felled by toxins.

With her race beginning about 11:20 p.m. local time, most folks are too busy chasing the drugs to notice her chasing -- and nearly catching -- Jamaica’s Veronica Campbell down the stretch.

She is so new to this, instead of taking a customary celebration lap behind the winner, she disappears into the tunnel.

“I don’t think she realized what she accomplished, or she would have taken a victory lap,” says her father, Paul.

Allyson smiles, saying, “I just want to kinda enjoy the moment for a second.”

She is a professional with a reported six-year contract in excess of $1 million, yet her mom says she will back in a classroom at USC on Tuesday.

When picking a coach, the family bypassed those tainted by drug suspensions and hired Pat Connolly, who once tutored Evelyn Ashford and is known for her disciplined approach.

“It’s part of our background.... We don’t want to be involved in any cheating,” says Paul, president of Los Angeles Bible Training school. “Pat is as dedicated to clean athletes as we are. We want to surround her with the right people.”

As long as she competes in a sport where the wrong people could be just one lane away, that wait is going to tough, but Wednesday was a good 200 meters’ worth of first steps.

In a sport still sadly dominated by those running backward.

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