Suspicion Taints Sport With a Broad Brush

Welcome to the U.S. Olympic track and field trials, where the air stinks of sweat, skin lotion and steroids.

Welcome to a 96-degree nightmare, a 400-meter mess, a denial-baked, accusation-splotched state capitol offense.

You want athletics? They’ve got athletics.

Marion Jones vaulting into a golf cart and speeding toward the parking lot.

Tim Montgomery triple-jumping out through the exits and sprinting down the sidewalk.

Jon Drummond throwing a javelin through the reputations of his competitors.

Gail Devers landing a shotput in the heart of the media.

Everyone hurdling the blame.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that there’s a cloud,” said George Williams, the men’s coach.

A cloud? It’s more like a tule fog, socking in these trials with a blinding, suffocating thickness that sticks sourly to the lips.

Three days in, and these trials taste like a cheat.

Every interview, it seems, begins in suspicion and ends in accusation.

Every athlete, it seems, is either outspoken against steroids or linked to one of the accused.

Splendid runs like the 400-meter hurdles by UCLA’s Sheena Johnson barely shine through the dirt.

Inspirational sprints like the 100-meter win by Maurice Greene are overtaken by the seventh-place finish of an alleged steroid user.

Williams warns about placing too much emphasis on steroid users

The coaches hint that they will not allow an accused drug cheat to taint a relay ... then Jerome Young, the positive-testing sprinter who may cost a U.S. relay team its gold medal from Sydney, shows up to run in the 400.

In one stuffy little corner, you have Drummond, a veteran sprinter, screaming for 30 minutes to reporters and fans, cursing about drugs and those who use them.

In another corner, you have Devers, another veteran, passing the buck like a rookie.

“You want to know what’s wrong with track?” she said to reporters. “You’re what’s wrong with track.”

No, what’s wrong with track is that the BALCO steroid investigation has produced enough evidence, by U.S. Anti-Doping Agency standards, to suspend several U.S. athletes.

Yet, lacking the conviction to cut the ties and face lawsuits they could lose, the U.S. track and field bosses are seemingly hoping the athletes will eliminate themselves.

Therefore, when the trials began Friday, they included six athletes formally accused of having used performance-enhancing drugs, and one who is being officially questioned.

So far, one has been completely eliminated, as world-record holder Tim Montgomery finished seventh in the 100-meter dash Sunday.

He was only slightly slower on his crowded walk to the exits.

“This is the reason why I can’t win,” Montgomery said as he pushed through dozens of reporters and fans. “I’ve got y’all on my back. I’ve got to deal with you every day.”

Now, six remain.

And until they are gone, the entire team, and process, is tainted by their presence.

Marion Jones, for whom a canceled check and initials on a doping schedule created a link to BALCO and questioning, has been knocked out of the 100 but can still qualify in the 200 and long jump.

Twins Calvin and Alvin Harrison -- the first of whom tested positive, the second has been accused -- are still alive for a spot in the 400, with the finals on Thursday.

Collins, also accused, is scheduled to run in the 400 later this week.

Sprinter Chryste Gaines has failed in the 100, but can still qualify in the 200.

Then there is middle-distance runner Regina Jacobs, who has tested positive but can still enter the women’s 800 meters later this week.

The U.S. track bosses are surely celebrating Montgomery’s defeat, and certainly hoping none of the other runners qualify.

They would hate to have any of them show up in Athens and later be declared ineligible.

The U.S. bosses should do the right thing and cut them no matter what happens here. Don’t allow them to make the team even if they make the team.

Representing this country is a privilege, not a right, and if you don’t believe that, then check out all those folks who are unilaterally turned down for military service or ambassadorships.

It’s not due process. But then, by making their living as track athletes who agree to be tested for drugs at all hours, they have already agreed to forgo due process.

It’s not the American way. But track is a world sport, and other places in the world follow the rules that call for suspensions even when there is no positive test.

After all, that’s what the entire BALCO mess is about, right?

Somebody ratted out the lab for producing a steroid that was undetectable on a test.

Talking about the effect of the investigation on Jones, her teammate Gaines said, “Stress busts pipes. So you can imagine what it can do to a person.”

And a meet. And a sport. And an Athens track and field effort if the U.S. doesn’t clean up its teams before it gets there.

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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.