JACOBS' WITHDRAWAL CURIOUS COULD SHE HAVE GIVEN RESPIRATORY ILLNESS TIME TO HEAL?

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

SYDNEY, Australia - On September 5, a respiratory infection did what no American at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials could accomplish: It caught up to Regina Jacobs.

The 37-year-old L.A. native wasn't able to finish a workout on a track near her Oakland home. Three days later, Jacobs, the U.S. Trials champion in the 1,500 meters (and the newly minted American-record holder in the 5,000 meters), announced she was bowing out of the 2000 Summer Olympics.

In a statement released late Friday by one of her sponsors, Jacobs cited an infection that had been gaining on her since mid-August, when she first started having trouble breathing.

``I had hoped to get it under control before Sydney,'' said Jacobs, a graduate of North Hollywood's Argyll Episcopal Academy, ``but we seem to have run out of time.''

The 1,500-meter heats won't be run until Sept. 27, begging the question: What was Regina's rush to withdraw?

Kerri Strug had 90 seconds to decide whether or not to attempt a second vault on her aching left ankle at the 1996 Olympics. Talk about being up against a time constraint.

Strug, of course, decided to do the vault and scored a 9.7 to secure the U.S. team's all-around victory over the Russians as well as her own Olympic legacy.

Steve Genter had less than 24 hours to decide whether or not the emergency surgery he had just undergone for a collapsed lung would keep him out of the 200-meter freestyle at the 1972 Summer Olympics. One day isn't much time to mull over such a decision.

Genter gingerly walked out of the Munich hospital and proceeded to the pool. Tender stitches and all, he managed to lead the 200 final for the first 150 meters before being overtaken on the final lap by Mark Spitz.

Next to 90 seconds and one day, three weeks would seem an embarrassment of hours in which to recover.

It's not as if Jacobs needed to search far and wide for inspiration. Camarillo High product Marla Runyan couldn't practice in the days leading to the U.S. Trials because of a leg injury, yet she managed to earn a berth to Sydney in the 1,500 meters by gutting out a third-place finish behind Jacobs and Suzy Favor Hamilton.

Gail Devers, a teammate of Jacobs on the past three U.S. Olympic teams, competed in the 100-meter hurdles in 1988 despite suffering from blurred vision and other symptoms that later would be diagnosed as Graves disease.

Then there's Ludmila Engquist of Sweden, who refused to let chemotherapy treatments for breast cancer keep her out of the World Championships last summer, winning the bronze medal in the sprint hurdles three months after undergoing a mastectomy.

Jacobs doesn't concede one step to her opponents on the track so it makes no sense for her to give a viral infection such a wide berth.

Dropping out of the Olympics when there still is time to get well is not Jacobs' style. It's like watching her walk off the track a few hundred meters before the finish line.

Jacobs' decision seemed all the more curious considering she said she plans to travel to Sydney to cheer on the U.S. team. If she will be in Australia, anyway, why not wait to see how she feels, physically, in the next week or so before announcing her race intentions?

The track entry deadline for the Olympics was Monday, which created some sense of urgency, we suppose. By making her decision when she did, Jacobs enabled U.S. track officials to add Shayne Culpepper, who was fourth in the 1,500 at the Trials, to the Olympic team. A noble gesture, that, but let's be honest: Jacobs, operating at less than her full breathing capacity, remains a better bet to win a medal than Culpepper, who is the 63rd-best performer in the event this year (Jacobs is eighth and Favor Hamilton first, off her winning time in Oslo in July).

The last thing we want to believe is that Jacobs had anything to fear in Sydney besides not winning.

On the same day as Jacobs' announcement, the office of White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey released a report that stated well over half the participants in some Olympic sports have used performance-enhancing drugs.

For the first time, Olympic athletes will be tested for the endurance drug EPO in Sydney. It's an absolutely essential step toward assuring that the timing or times of someone as celebrated as Jacobs will never be suspect.

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Regina Jacobs, right, withdrew from the 2000 Summer Olympics because she was hampered by a respiratory illness. Yet, she had more time to allow herself to heal and, perhaps, compete in Sydney regardless.

Doug Mills/Associated Press