Track championships have a new look

Tyson Gay ran the fastest 100 meters of his career the day he first was congratulated for being national champion.

It was last Aug. 18 at a Golden League meet in Zurich, Switzerland, where a rival’s coach, John Smith, gave Gay the due he should have received two months earlier at the U.S. Championships in Indianapolis, where he finished second in the 100 to Justin Gatlin. Gatlin was later stripped of the 100-meter title for failing a drug test.

“I think anyone would feel slightly cheated,” Gay said Wednesday. “The being able to wave to the fans, to have the victory with your family and friends there, that’s the part I wish I could have back.”

Gatlin won’t be back to regain a title USA Track & Field officials could not prevent him from trying to win a year ago, even though they learned about a week before the 2006 nationals that Gatlin’s urine “A” sample from the Kansas Relays two months earlier was positive for the banned steroid testosterone. Once Gatlin’s “B” sample was found positive in late July, USATF stripped Gatlin of the 100-meter national title, pending resolution of the appeal an arbitration panel will hear July 31.

In the interim, reigning world and Olympic 100-meter champion Gatlin has been banned for eight years.

“It doesn’t seem strange not having him here,” said Gay, now the favorite in the 100. “Track and field still is going to go on.”

When the 100-meter competition begins tonight at the 2007 U.S. Championships, defending women’s champion Marion Jones, now an international woman of mystery, also will be absent.

Lauryn Williams, second a year ago, won’t miss the sport’s erstwhile superstar.

“I can’t say I’m upset,” said Williams, reigning 100-meter world champion. “The mood of the room changes when she [Jones] is present; she commands most of the focus.”

Jones remains 2006 champion, even though her “A” sample from a doping control at nationals came back positive for the blood booster EPO. When the “B” test did not confirm the “A,” Jones was exonerated, but she has not escaped the shadow of her involvement with the BALCO scandal, although she never has tested positive.

BALCO founder Victor Conte has said he created a doping program for Jones, which she denied. Jones’ ex-husband, shotputter C.J. Hunter, reportedly told federal investigators he had seen Jones inject herself and take a variety of banned substances.

Jones, winner of three gold and five total medals at the 2000 Olympics, has not competed since last July. She reportedly was married to former Barbadian sprinter Obadele Thompson in February and has moved from North Carolina to Texas.

“To me, out of sight, out of mind,” Williams said. “Hopefully, people aren’t wasting time thinking about the negativity of past.”

That is hard to avoid when the subject is U.S. sprinters. Since Kelli White lost her 2003 world titles in the 100 and 200 after confessing to BALCO-related drug use, there has been little positive -- except testing results.

Torri Edwards, who inherited White’s 100 world title, missed the 2004 Olympics because she was banned two years for use of the stimulant nikethamide. She paid a big price for a small offense: an international sports tribunal found Edwards had not intentionally cheated but upheld her ban on the grounds she was negligent in not asking whether there was a banned substance in what she thought was a glucose pill.

Edwards’ ban ended after 15 months because the World Anti-Doping Agency downgraded the penalty for nikethamide. She was third at last year’s nationals and has the fastest 100 time in the world this season.

Of the possibility Edwards could become U.S. champion, Williams said, “The rules are what they are; she has followed them, and they permit her to compete, so I don’t have a problem with it.”

Gatlin had played up his role as part of a new generation committed to restore the sport’s honor after the BALCO scandal. That made his fall especially damaging to track and painful to his close friend, 200-meter world champion Allyson Felix.

“It was very unfortunate,” Felix said. “We took a step back with that.”

Felix said she was astonished when Gatlin called to tell her about the positive test.

“You don’t see things like that coming,” she said, “especially someone that you are really close to. It was definitely a big personal blow to me. I’m still his friend, and I’m always going to be his friend, but I can’t, you know, support the guy. I’m definitely disappointed he’s in the situation.”

Gatlin bounced around several NFL teams’ mini-camps this spring in an apparently vain attempt to begin a new career. Felix has not asked him about that part of his life, even though they talk frequently.

“Our friendship is a little different now,” she said. “We don’t really discuss anything track-wise or football-wise.”

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Philip Hersh covers Olympic sports for The Times and the Chicago Tribune.