Felix Dials Up 200 Win

Justin Gatlin’s phone rang at 8 a.m. on Friday. At the other end was Allyson Felix, who calls him “my sidekick” and sought his reassurance as she prepared for the 200-meter final at the world championships.

“She said, ‘I’m nervous,’ ” Gatlin recalled. “I said, ‘What are you nervous about? You beat Veronica Campbell head to head in London a few weeks ago, and you’ve been out there all season.’

“She ran a great race, a very gutsy race.”

Two years after she graduated from L.A. Baptist High in North Hills and a year after she won a silver medal at the Athens Olympics, Felix became the first teenager to win a world sprint title. Overcoming a typically slow start, she calmly caught Olympic champion Campbell and loped past French veteran Christine Arron with about 20 meters to go. Her time of 22.16 seconds was second in the world this season, just off her winning time of 22.13 at the U.S. championship at Carson in June.

Rachelle Boone-Smith of Norfolk, Va., mother of a 7-year-old son and a breakout performer this season, was second in 22.31. Arron was third, also in 22.31, and Campbell fourth in 22.38.

“I just wanted to stay relaxed and rely on my strength,” said Felix, who will be 20 in November. “This one means a lot. I worked for it all year. I think last year’s Olympics was really motivation. I wanted to work hard, and it paid off.”

After the Olympics, Felix switched coaches from Pat Connolly to Bob Kersee, who had her run 600-meter races in practice to build endurance. She also continued a relationship with Gatlin, who trains in Raleigh, N.C. Both say they’re just friends, but he added, “If we lived in the same place it might be different. She’s so young and she’s making her niche in track and field.”

She affirmed her reputation as a pressure performer Friday.

“I think that now I’m pretty comfortable with the fact that I don’t get out well and it’s something that I’m always working for,” she said of her starts, “but I also know how to recover from it.”

The U.S. men’s 400-meter relay team couldn’t recover from a botched first handoff from Mardy Scales to Leonard Scott. And 34-year-old Allen Johnson, vying for a fifth 100-meter hurdles title, landed off balance after he struck the last hurdle and finished third in 13.10 seconds, behind Ladji Doucoure of France (13.07) and Olympic champion Xiang Liu of China (13.08), both 22.

“A medal is better than nothing,” Johnson said, “but when you line up, you always go for gold.”

The relay lost its medal chance when Scott dropped the baton. “I can’t even tell you how it came out of my hand,” he said. “We had it. It just slipped out.”

Maurice Greene, who pulled a hamstring at the U.S. championships and didn’t finish the 100, was to run the relay as his only event here. “It’s real simple to pass a stick,” he said. “You’ve just got to get people in there who know what they’re doing. People make it harder than it seems. They had the stick. It just slipped out of his hand.”

The U.S. women’s 400 relay team avoided that mistake. Angela Daigle, Muna Lee, Me’Lisa Barber and 100-meter champion Lauryn Williams ran a world-leading 42.16 to qualify for today’s final.

A rare sunny day and pleasant evening was the backdrop for Yelena Isinbayeva’s 18th world record in the women’s pole vault and Olympic gold medalist Jeremy Wariner’s world-leading and personal-best time of 43.93 in winning the 400. Wariner’s 1-2 finish with Andrew Rock gave the U.S. team 20 medals -- 11 gold, seven silver and two bronze.

Isinbayeva, a ponytailed 23-year-old from Volgograd, Russia, easily cleared 16 feet, 5 1/4 inches and broke the record she set on July 22. She earned $60,000 for her victory and a $100,000 bonus for the record.

“Tonight the world record seemed to be extremely high,” she said. “It was really difficult to jump at that height.”

Sergei Bubka of Russia, who set 35 men’s world pole vault records and still holds the record of 20-1 3/4 inches, said Isinbayeva “is very professional” and added “altogether, there’s a huge gap between her and the others.”

The gap between Wariner and his pursuers was almost as big. Rock was second in 44.35 and Canada’s Tyler Christopher was third in 44.44, but neither had a chance.

“He always steps up in big meets,” Rock said. “Just when you think perhaps there’s a chance he might be vulnerable, he does this.”

Efficient and consistent, Wariner pulled away from the field down the straightaway. “I thought it would be a little closer than that,” he said. “I’m happy with my time and that I got through the 44-second barrier. But I’ve got to stay focused for the [1,600-meter] relay on Sunday.”

*

Dwight Phillips, a gold medalist in the long jump at Athens, led the qualifiers for today’s final with a jump of 28 feet 2 1/4 inches. But triple jump champion Walter Davis was eliminated after a best jump of 24-4 1/4 . ... USC’s Jesse Williams, the NCAA outdoor high jump champion and U.S. championships runner-up, struggled with his technique in qualifying and didn’t reach Sunday’s final. “I’m going to win in 2007, that’s the plan,” he said. Matt Hemingway of the U.S. cleared 7-5 1/4 and advanced. Athens gold medalist Stefan Holm of Sweden also cleared 7-5 1/4 .

The International Assn. of Athletics Federations is investigating whether decathlon runner-up Roman Sebrle and Czech compatriot Tomas Dvorak committed a doping offense when they received intravenous transfusions on Wednesday.

The Czech Athletics Federation said both were given glucose to remedy low blood-sugar levels. Glucose is not a banned substance and the World Anti-Doping Agency permits transfusions if they’re legitimate medical treatment and not intended to dilute athletes’ blood samples. Juan Manuel Alonso, chairman of the IAAF medical and doping commission, said no infractions were apparent “so far.”

Both were tested after the event, but the results have not been disclosed; an IAAF statement said that neither sample had been diluted. More than 700 doping tests have been performed this week.