No longer exalted, track slouches toward China

updated 12:15 p.m. ET July 15, 2008

From the days of ancient Greece, through the days of Jesse Owens, Bruce Jenner and Carl Lewis, track and field held pride of place at the Olympics — and produced many of the biggest stars.

It’s not as though BMX, trampoline or beach volleyball was on anyone’s mind when the founders of the modern games dreamed up the “faster, higher, stronger” motto.

That was then.

Doping cases have claimed some of track and field’s most prominent names, a portion of its popularity and, in the eyes of some, its legitimacy. As in: When someone does the very thing we hope for — produces a superhuman performance by running faster or jumping higher or throwing farther than anyone ever has — is it real? Can we believe what we see?

Shedding a light
Track and field is slouching toward Beijing. To climb back on its pedestal, the sport needs the world to pay attention to the compelling story lines at these Summer Games, highlighted by what could be the greatest men’s 100-meter race in history and a Chinese megastar named Liu Xiang.

“You definitely can get fed up with a sport — so many scandals or whatever. But I think that there are clean athletes out here just trying to put the performances back up there,” said Allyson Felix, an American sprinter who could win gold medals in the 200 meters along with two relays and become a breakthrough star at these Olympics.

“We’re really doing all that we can,” she said, “to shed some light — positive light — back onto our sport.”

Felix and her competitors are all too aware that so many of the headlines generated by track athletes in recent years have been negative:

• Tim Montgomery Stripped of World Record
• Olympic Champion Justin Gatlin Goes to Court to Fight Doping Ban
• Coach Trevor Graham Convicted in BALCO-Connected Case
• Marion Jones Admits Doping
• Marion Jones Heads to Jail
• Marion Jones Returns Olympic Medals

And so on.

Evident pecking order
Filling the void, at least in the United States, are swimming, led by Michael Phelps, and gymnastics, led by Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin.

TV exposure tells the story.

Getty Images Share your photos from past Olympic Games — from Turin and beyond — you’ve attended.

With the recent U.S. track trials and the swimming trials running concurrently, NBC chose to place Bob Costas, the face of its Olympics coverage, by the pool in Omaha, Neb., rather than trackside in Eugene, Ore.

That pecking order will be evident in China, too. During the Aug. 8-24 Olympics, swimming and gymnastics will be broadcast as they happen in prime time in the United States, even though that meant switching the start times to morning in Beijing. Track and field will be shown in the evening, but on tape — the suspense of the results gone in this wired world.

The trials in those three sports were illustrative. The overnight ratings on NBC averaged 3.9 for swimming, 3.3 for gymnastics and 3.2 for track and field.

The network insists track hasn’t lost its luster.

“For an American audience, in no particular order, there’s gymnastics, swimming, track and field, diving and beach volleyball,” NBC executive vice president David Neal said. “Those are sort of the top tier, and (track is) solidly in that top tier.”

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