Greene, Jones Run Like Wind at Carson

Maurice Greene and his blue shoes conspired to scorch a stretch of synthetic turf at Saturday’s Home Depot Track and Field Invitational, covering 100 meters in a wind-aided 9.86 seconds, the world’s fastest time under any conditions this year.

One good conspiracy deserved another, especially with a crowd of 11,266 and a national television audience looking on. Greene loves a big audience, so he had hurdler Larry Wade lurking on the infield, just in case, waiting for Greene to cross the finish and triumphantly fling his shoes to the ground. As soon as Greene did, Wade sprinted onto the track to douse the shoes with a fire extinguisher.

“My feet was burning!” Greene said with a laugh in the trackside interview tent. “They were on fire. Someone had to put the fire out.”

That became a theme Saturday, with athletes conducting their business on the track, then doing whatever they could to try to extinguish a brush fire called BALCO, which is threatening to consume their sport.

Marion Jones won both of her events, recording wind-aided marks of 10.99 seconds in the women’s 100 meters and 23 feet 4 3/4 inches in the long jump. But as soon as she briefly mentioned how pleased she was with both efforts, the post-race questions turned to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative drug case and the recent two-year suspension dealt U.S. sprinter Kelli White.

“I always say, if you do something wrong, you should pay the piper, you should pay your penalty,” Jones said. “It’s really not my place to comment on her cooperating” with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

“If that benefits her, if that helps her, that’s great,” Jones added.

“Like I’ve said, I’m still not concerned in the least about myself.”

Jones, whose name has been linked to the BALCO case, has denied taking performance-enhancing drugs and has never tested positive for drugs.

“I want to know exactly what you want to know -- why are they trying to bring down athletes with no positive tests?” she said. “Why are you trying to ban athletes who have not tested positive for any banned substances? That’s what we all want to know. That’s what I want to know.

“I’m in the same situation, really, that you guys are. We’re wondering why my name is being dragged into this? Of course, we all know, it’s public, that I sat and I testified in front of the grand jury, yes. But the fact that they’re trying to ban athletes and whether or not I’m one of them, we don’t know, that’s what we’re going to try and find out. And if so, why?

“My thing is, so much of my life, as you guys know, is front-page news. Everything. From winning gold medals to divorce to coaching change to testifying in front of the grand jury. And trust me, if I’d had a positive test, you would know. The world would know. It would have been front-page news.”

Greene called White’s case “a sad situation.” “People make bad choices,” he added. “And unfortunately she has to pay for hers. But, it’s also a good thing for our sport, because it’s cleaning our sport up.

“It’s time for our sport to be clean,” he added, in the hope that “everything that we do ... will be able to go down in history now with no questions asked.”

Greene’s 100-meter time was one of several outstanding individual performances Saturday’s meet produced. Others included:

* Christian Cantwell’s winning shotput of 73 feet 4 inches, a personal best and the top mark in the world this year. Afterward, Cantwell, 23, who took second place at the 2003 NCAA championships before winning the world indoor title this year, said he is aiming to break the world record “definitely within four years.”

“My training is just getting better every year. I’ve improved every year since 2002 and I don’t see it stopping,” he said.

“My coach and I think I have the talent. There’s no doubt in my mind I have a chance.”

* Alan Webb’s victory in the men’s 1,500 meters in 3 minutes 35.71 seconds, the second-best time in the world this year.

* Melissa Morrison’s holding off Gail Devers to win the women’s 100-meter hurdles with a time of 12.44 seconds. Devers, who said she was slowed by bumping Canada’s Perdita Felicien “three times” early in the race, finished second in 12.52.

* Shayne Culpepper’s winning the women’s 1,500 meters in 4:06.33, the best mark in the world this year.

* Wade’s edging Terrance Trammell in the men’s 110-meter hurdles. Wade, fourth at the world championships in 2003, recorded a wind-aided time of 13.12 seconds. Trammell, a 2000 Olympic silver medalist, ran 13.20.

Wind played havoc with the men’s pole vault competition, which featured seven vaulters who had previously cleared 19 feet. Only three cleared 18 feet on Saturday, with Toby Stevenson’s effort of 18 feet 4 1/2 inches good enough for the victory.

“It’s always good to win,” Stevenson said. “These guys are some of the best in the world. The weather was great, but the wind was terrible. It was coming in from the right side, which is really bad for right-handed vaulters like myself.”

Greene’s wind-aided 100-meter victory and fire extinguisher-aided celebration made for good television, but Greene wasn’t overly enthused with the performance, saying he would have graded it “a C.”

Asked what he thought he did right, Greene grinned and said, simply: “Win.”

“I’m satisfied with the race,” he said.

“The wind was pushing me, and it made me rush a lot of things. I have to be a lot more patient. I think if I was a lot more patient in the race, I would have run much faster than that.”

Still, the shot of Greene spiking his spikes on the track and having Wade rush in to cool them off made for a good visual.

And, added Greene, looking ahead to the U.S. Olympic Trials in July and the Summer Olympics in August, “I’ve got a lot more fire.”