Athletics: Records for the optimists, drugs for the pessimists

By JOHN MEHAFFEY

Depending on who you heed, the 2003 athletics season was either a wonderful success or another nail in the coffin for a doomed sport.

Hicham El Guerrouj, who won a fourth world 1500m title in Paris, is one of the optimists.

"This has been an absolutely great season, great for the sport, great for television audiences," he enthused. "The sport is growing all the time."

Moses Kiptanui, the greatest of Kenya's gifted steeplechasers, expressed the opposing view after Olympic 1500m bronze medallist Bernard Lagat tested positive for EPO (erythropoietin).

"This is greed, nothing else," he said. "They are spoiling the sport that we helped build over the years."

Somewhere in the middle stood Craig Masback, chief executive of the troubled American federation USA Track and Field.

"The best of times, the worst of times," he said in Paris after double sprint champion Kelli White tested positive for a stimulant.

Masback's paraphrase of the opening lines of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, is probably a fair summary of the state of the central sport of the summer Olympics less than a year before the Athens Games.

The year began badly for the International Association of Athletics Federations after reports late last year that the world's fastest sprint couple, Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery, had been associated with one of the sport's greatest pariahs.

The pair eventually confirmed that they had been taking advice from Charlie Francis, banned for life by the Canadian federation when his protege, Ben Johnson, tested positive for steroids after the 100m final at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Jones, a triple Olympic champion who took the year off to have a baby, and Montgomery, the world 100m recordholder, soon announced they had split with Francis, but the whole incident at best was an embarrassment to them and their sport.

The world indoor championships in Birmingham, England, in March featured the latest US sprint sensation, Justin Gatlin, who won the 60m ahead of Kim Collins, of St Kitts and Nevis, who later won the 100m gold in Paris.

In the same month, Kenenisa Bekele won the world cross-country long and short titles in Lausanne, and Paula Radcliffe smashed her own world record time in the London marathon.

Later in the year, Kenyan Paul Tergat claimed the men's record in his first marathon win.

The Golden League series showcased the incomparable talents of Mozambique's Maria Mutola, unquestionably the greatest women's 800m runner.

Mutola captured the world indoor and outdoor titles.

She won each of her 15 races indoor and out, and picked up US$1 million ($1.6 million) as the only person to win all her events in the Golden League series.

Although Jones and several other Olympic or world champions were missing, the Paris world championships provided athletics at its best in one of the world's great stadiums with a succession of agonisingly close finishes.

Berhane Adere won the first gold medal of the championships for Ethiopia in the women's 10,000m, a race which could have been a real classic if Radcliffe had not pulled out injured before the championships.

Bekele signalled the changing of the guard by beating Haile Gebrselassie in the men's 10,000m during a triumphant championships for Ethiopia, who finished third in the medals table behind the United States and Russia.

El Guerrouj retained the men's 1500m title, but failed in a gallant bid to add the 5000m gold when he was beaten on the line by Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge.

Sweden's Cornelia Kluft was an instant hit with the spectators, moving to third on the all-time heptathlon list with 7001 points in the two-day multi-event.

But there was a darker side to the championships.

A US newspaper report said 400m champion Jerome Young had failed a drugs test before the 2000 Sydney Olympics, but was subsequently cleared and allowed to compete.

White won the 100m-200m double, but tested positive after the 100m for a stimulant which will go on the banned list next year.

Worse was to follow. All the Paris urine samples were retested after news in the United States that a new designer steroid, THG (tetrahydrogestrinone), had been discovered.

Britain's European 100m champion Dwain Chambers, fourth in Paris, subsequently tested positive for an out-of-competition test.

A new generation of attractive and exciting talent emerged in Paris. But at year's end, with the extent of the THG scandal still uncertain, the future of their sport remained in the balance.

- REUTERS