Paul Lewis: The remarkable Merlene Ottey runs on

Ok, this column is going to look a bit odd if you read last week's - a major grump proposing jailing athletes who fail drug tests, sparked by Justin Gatlin's positive test and predictable campaign to clear his name. But, this week, a woman by the name of Merlene Ottey ran in the women's 100m at the European championships in Sweden - aged 46.

Ottey missed the final by 0.03s, an astonishing achievement for a 46-year-old.

This in the 100m - an event of such explosiveness that people over 40 generally need not apply.

So let's get the drugs thing out of the way. Merlene Ottey - who I am about to suggest is one of the true greats of women's athletics - failed a drugs test for the steroid nandralone in 1999, sparking one of several controversies ahead of the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

She was reinstated, some say because the laboratory which did the tests was discredited, others because the authorities wanted her to compete at Sydney.

Whatever the truth, Ottey has overcome the stain the drugs charge left on her tunic. To be racing creditably in the 100m at 46 is like Fred Allen replacing an injured Dan Carter in the All Blacks - and playing well.

It's like Dean Lonergan playing for the 2006 Kiwis and winning a test against the Kangaroos with an intercept - and doing it every year.

The other controversy which dogged Ottey in 2000 was the hustle to get her into the Jamaican Olympic team. Ottey was in danger of missing out to a younger athlete but was given a berth. Jamaican athletes protested after they felt Ottey had bullied her way on to the team at the expense of a younger athlete.

After competing in Sydney (where she finished fourth in the 100m, aged 40), Ottey showed that the protest, which made international headlines, had hurt her by vowing she would not run for Jamaica again.

She moved to Slovenia and became a citizen in 2002, which is why she is competing in the European championships.

You wouldn't be human if you didn't wonder about the Slovenian drug testing regime but Ottey still races so frequently that she is regularly tested, without blemish.

After missing the European 100m final this week, she blamed a lack of training and competition for not making the final. She missed most of last year's season when she tore a tendon off her thigh and had to have it re-attached using three screws. She spoke about possibly making the Beijing Olympics in 2008, when she will be 48. Are you thinking 'remarkable' yet?

I watched Ottey run at the Olympics twice - in 1984 (bronze in the 100m and 200m) and again in 1988 (fourth in Flo Jo's unbelievable, in all senses of the word, world record 200m). It seemed then she must have run her race. Her first Olympics, after all, were in 1980.

But she was back at Atlanta in 1996, Sydney (silver in the 100m) and Athens in 2004, when she ran 11.14s to make the semifinals.

Ottey has been a favourite since those '80s Olympics and since she became the female athlete to win the most Olympic medals - eight, but not one gold. This denotes a certain cussedness, I always think, plus a love of competing.

She's been a favourite, too, because she has an easy interview style and generally fronts up to the world's media, even when she knows they are going to crack on about how old she is.

Then there's the story of how a 14-year-old Ottey was first picked to run at a representative meeting in Jamaica. An innocent away from home, she had a purse with money from her mum. Fearing it would be stolen if she left it, she clutched the purse at the start of her 200m race. She dropped it and lost ground as she hesitated, thinking she might pick it up. She accelerated away without stopping and won the race.

By the time she got back, the purse was gone. Merlene Ottey has sure found riches in her career since then - and I don't just mean money.

At Athens in 2004, she was asked who her favourite sprinter was and she named American Gail Devers "because I always lose to her".

Devers beat her in the Olympic 100m final in 1992 and 1996, when she and Devers posted identical times but Devers was given first place by 1cm.

The first five placegetters could not be separated by the naked eye.

In Athens, Ottey qualified 11th fastest to make the semifinals. Devers qualified 16th and last.

The slowest of the semifinalists in Athens was 24-year-old Kim Gevaerts of Belgium - the same woman who this week won the 100m European final and who said of Ottey: "My mum is only a couple of years older and I don't see my mum here."

I just hope Ottey never again tests positive for drugs. Please.