U.S. track and field must face world's critics.

Byline: Ron Bellamy / The Register-Guard

The `zero tolerance' policy announced by USA Track & Field - lifetime bans for first-time steroid offenders, with the same penalties for coaches - sounds noble but never will become reality.

For starters, the Amateur Sports Act prohibits USATF from enacting a more stringent penalty than its international governing body, the IAAF, which uses a two-year ban. Indeed, the track and field entity made its policy contingent on it being in compliance with that law.

An empty PR gesture, then? Well, it's certainly a dramatic attempt to go from defense to offense.

That's because USA Track & Field has been accused by the World Anti-Doping Agency and the International Olympic Committee of hiding positive drug tests of athletes prior to the Sydney Olympics.

These accusations have become focused on the case of one athlete, Jerome Young, who won a gold medal by running the first leg on the 4-by-400-meter relay in the first round and in the semifinal after reportedly testing positive in 1999 for the banned substance nandrolone. Young has maintained he never committed a doping offense.

The anti-doping agency, WADA, wants to know what USATF knew and how it justified letting Young compete. USATF says it can't disclose that because an international arbitration court ordered confidentiality. The IOC and WADA want USATF to come clean by Feb. 1 or U.S. track athletes could be kept out of the 2004 Olympics.

A bluff? Perhaps, though WADA president Dick Pound and the IOC won't easily let USATF out of their cross-hairs. Overseas, resentment of USA track is significant.

"Everybody is hammering pretty hard for Americans to step up to the plate, because we've been pointing fingers for a long time," said Steven Ungerleider, the Eugene sports psychologist who documented the state-run doping abuses in the former East Germany and who has become an authoritative voice on drug-testing issues.

The Jerome Young case has become a battleground; the relay team, anchored by Michael Johnson, could be stripped of its medal. Craig Masback, USATF chief executive officer, says the arbitration ruling prevents USATF from disclosing any information; WADA and the IOC disagree with that interpretation - and there's a school of thought that Masback should at least ask the arbitration court for a clarification.

But, come on, could U.S. track athletes really be kept out of the Olympics over this? "There's a remote possibility that could happen," Ungerleider said.

Meanwhile, a grand jury in San Francisco is investigating BALCO, a supplier of nutritional supplements and, allegedly, the source of the newly detected steroid THG.

Track and field athletes who have testified behind closed doors include superstar Marion Jones and sprinter Tim Montgomery. Sadly, merely being called as a witness brings suspicion, and the BALCO files certainly include the names of many athletes who purchased legitimate nutritional supplements.

But Ungerleider believes that 30 to 40 U.S. track and field athletes ultimately might be implicated as having obtained banned substances.

"We've got a really bad situation, and we need to clean it up," he said.

Another Eugene resident immersed in the anti-doping issue is Janet Heinonen, whose newsletter, `Keeping Track,' focuses heavily on that topic, and whose "Bell Lap" column on the Runner's World Web site discusses "zero tolerance" today.

Heinonen believes USATF must release the details of the Young case. She supports a USATF proposal to make public the names of athletes who pass tests.

Tom Jordan, meet director for the Prefontaine Classic, notes that his sport has made thwarting the use of banned substances a priority, in stark contrast to baseball and other pro sports. The Pre Classic has had post-event drug testing for 15 years, and Jordan believes that Hayward Field fans believe the athletes are "by and large" clean.

But he might also hope that, by June, clouds of suspicion aren't following athletes to Eugene.