Change for better at USATF: believe it

EUGENE — Jackie Joyner-Kersee is arguably the greatest female American track and field athlete of all time. Competing across four editions of the Olympics in the long jump and the heptathlon, she won six medals, three gold. Before Max Siegel took over as chief executive of USA Track & Field, Jackie Joyner-Kersee had never — repeat, never — been invited to USATF headquarters in Indianapolis.

Let that sink in for a moment.

“I don’t want to believe the design was to leave people on the outside,” Joyner-Kersee said here amid the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials. “It was just business as usual. It became normal. You think that is the way it is supposed to be.”

Culture change is about the most difficult thing there is to effect, all the more so in the Olympic sports sphere.

At work now — in real time — is a profound culture shift for the better at USATF, which is, as Siegel put it Tuesday, both the economic engine and the governing body of track and field in the United States.

Of course there are critics, non-believers, doomsayers.

All constructive criticism is more than welcome, Siegel observing that such observations can “point out our weaknesses” and thus be “really healthy for us.” He added, “People should continue to express their criticism, their concern and hopefully their praise for the organization.”

To be sure, USATF is far from perfect. No institution is perfect. No institution can ever be perfect.

At the same time, praise where praise is due:

USATF, long the most-dysfunctional federation in the so-called U.S. “Olympic family,” has — in the four years since Siegel took over — taken concrete, demonstrative steps to become a leader in the field.

True — by virtually any metric.

Joyner-Kersee: “Change is hard. Most of the time, you don’t see change until years down the road. But there are certain things that are being put in place where, at the beginning, you might not understand why. But when the moment comes, you see it’s working out.”

For the first time in recent memory, these 2016 Trials are what they should be: a commemoration of the sport’s vibrant past as well as a well-run production at go time with an eye toward the future, in particular the 2021 world championships, back here at historic Hayward Field.

The evidence is all around Hayward, and Eugene:

Here was John Carlos, the legend from the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, singing autographs.

Here was Adam Nelson being presented the 2004 Athens Games shot put gold medal in a Hayward ceremony. Nelson, who had initially finished second, was moved up to gold when Ukraine’s Yuri Bilonoh was, to little surprise, confirmed a doper. In 2016, Nelson got what he deserved — a ceremony before thousands cheering for him, and for competing clean. Then he went out and tried to qualify for the 2016 team, making the finals and finishing seventh. All good for a guy who on Thursday turns 41.

https://twitter.com/AdamMcNelson/status/748907838584463362

https://twitter.com/ryanmfenton/status/750129069384019968

Here, during the next-to-last lap during a prelim in the men’s 5,000, came the javelin champion Cyrus Hosteler — waving an American flag, racing exuberantly down the curve and the homestretch in the outside lane while the pack zipped by on the inside.

Here, too, behind Hayward have been hundreds, maybe thousands, of kids racing in the “little sprinters” section. Or outside the stadium — kids and grown-ups trying their luck at throwing the shot.

All of it amid the county-fair smell of kettle corn, and under brilliant blue skies.

Vin Lananna, president of TrackTown, the local organizers, who is as well the 2016 U.S. Olympic track team men's head coach, said much strategizing had gone into what he called two “common themes — bringing the athletes into close contact with the fans and introducing as many boys and girls to running, jumping and throwing as possible.”

He also said, “It is my hope that by shining a spotlight on certain events, by working hard to attract boys and girls to the sport, and by celebrating the amazing heritage of our athletes at these 2016 Olympic Trials, that we’ll really grow the awareness of today’s track and field heroes in the mind of Americans.

“And I hope that by 2021, when the world comes to Oregon for the IAAF world championships, the stars of Team USA are household names. I’m sure that on the final night of these Trials we’ll be strategizing about what next steps we can take to make that happen.”

At this point, the skeptic cries — wait. NBC sent Bob Costas to Omaha last week for the swim Trials. There Costas interviewed the stars Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky.

Is Costas in Eugene? No.

Then again, on Sunday alone, U.S. athletes set seven world-leading marks; the hashtag “#TrackTown16” trended globally on Twitter; the USATF production team launched its first Snapchat story; and three of the five top trending items on Facebook were the U.S. track stars Allyson Felix, LaShawn Merritt and Justin Gatlin.

USATF will send a team of roughly 125 athlete to Rio, roughly a quarter of the entire U.S. delegation. Halfway through these Trials, 50 track and field athletes have been named. Of those 50, 35 are first-time Olympians. In these disciplines all three qualifiers will be first-timers: men’s and women’s 800; men’s pole vault, men’s long jump, women’s discus.

It’s all quite a change from four years ago.

Siegel had just taken over just weeks before as CEO. The 2012 Trials were marked by a bizarre dead-heat in the women’s 100 that became a worldwide source of ridicule. Plus, there was the weather.

As Siegel said Tuesday in a state-of-the-sport news conference, “It is a lot different for me. It was raining and I was in the middle of a dead heat a couple weeks on the job.”

Lots of things are indisputably a lot different.

First and foremost, USATF used to run with an annual budget of roughly $16 to $18 million. This year, it’s $36 million — the product of 17 new deals in the past 48 months, including 12 new corporate partnerships.

Has USATF figured out how to make track athletes the kind of money NFL or NBA players get?

No.

But, working in collaboration with its athletes’ council, chaired by long jump champion Dwight Phillips, for the first time an athlete who makes the U.S. national team gets $10,000 along with bonuses of up to $25,000 for Olympic gold medals. That’s all in addition to dollars that can come from the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Does that automatically make a track star a millionaire? No.

Is it a start? Yes. Just “scratching the surface,” Siegel said.

And, as Siegel pointed out, it’s reasonable to ask whether it’s fair to compare, on the one hand, track and field with, on the other, the NBA or NFL.

The pro leagues are for-profit enterprises. Moreover, they are unionized.

USATF is a not-for-profit entity. Plus, its charge is to serve not only elite athletes but also a variety of grass-roots programs.

“The conversation gets a little cloudy when people have whatever their personal definition is about sharing money with athletes,” he said. “If you host an event that gives an athlete a platform, some would say that’s not money in the athlete’s pocket. But someone needs to fund those things.”

Which leads directly to the central point.

When he took over, Siegel said, he saw two primary objectives: to effect organizational stability and to drive innovation.

Another innovation nugget: Wednesday’s hammer throw competition, to be held inside Hayward, will be available via desktop, tablet, mobile and connected TV devices. Here is the livestream link for the women's competition. And the men's.

Most important:

For the first time in maybe ever, USATF can pronounce itself stable.

Nothing — repeat, nothing — is possible without that stability, and anyone who is being reasonable would have to acknowledge that much of the criticism that attends USATF comes from those who for years have accepted intense variability as part of the landscape, often seeking to leverage that instability in the pursuit of petty politics or otherwise.

Before Siegel took over, Nelson said, “No one trusted the leadership,” adding, “When that trust is broken, a power grab goes on.”

He also said, “There is a culture change happening. There have been major changes at work at USATF in the last four years.”

Hawi Keflezeghi, the agent whose clients include Boris Berian, runner-up in the men’s 800, recently sent Siegel an email — quoted here with permission — that said, in part, “Your commitment to elite athletes through the high performance program is evident & greatly appreciated,” adding, “Thank you for all your efforts & leadership.”

Keflezighi, in an interview, said, speaking generally about the state of the sport, “If you are quick to criticize, be quick to acknowledge the good that is going on, too. Be objective enough to see it.”

Nelson, referring both to track and field generally and USATF specifically, said, “This is a family, and I genuinely mean that — even when a family fights, even when a family disagrees.

“But for a family to survive, you have to find ways to break down those barriers and re-establish communication.”

This is the key to Siegel’s style. And why USATF is on the upswing.

For students of management, he alluded to four different facets of his way in his Tuesday remarks.

One: “My style is not to discuss [in the press] things that are happening or resolutions that need to be made in the privacy of business.”

If you think that means he’s not transparent — wrong. All in, Siegel spent 50 minutes Tuesday at the lectern, half of that answering any and all questions. Beyond which, the USATF website holds the answer to almost every organizational or financial question.

Two, he and chief operating officer Renee Washington place a tremendous emphasis on — as much as possible — working collaboratively with the many stakeholders in the USATF universe.

The athlete revenue distribution — or sharing, if you like — plan?

“We worked collaboratively and painstakingly and long, and put in a collective effort with [the athlete council] … to come up with a system that was fair,” Siegel said, adding, “We continue to work in a fluid manner to improve it.”

Three, Siegel and Washington are quick to credit others.

USATF staffers, he said, “work tirelessly, are equally as passionate, care about the sport and wake up every day trying to do the best job possible.”

At Tuesday’s event, he singled out, among others in the room, Duffy Mahoney and Robert Chapman in the high performance division; and the four-time Olympian Aretha Thurmond, who has the complex job of overseeing logistics, travel and uniforms for international teams.

Too, he said, “I can not say enough about our partners at TrackTown and the city of Eugene.”

Four, Siegel can approach problems with either a macro or micro approach — whichever is, depending on the situation, most appropriate.

Micro: “We have been trying really hard to pay attention to small details that people don’t see,” he said, down to the way team uniforms get packed in the bags, with care and attention, evidence of “what it feels like to be treated with dignity and respect and the kind of importance that an athlete deserves.”

Macro: “For us as a community, for all of us who really love track and field, who would love to see the sport grow, it is not rocket science: people have to want to consume the product. You have to have people who are willing to buy tickets to the event, sponsors who are willing to spend money, people who are willing to spend merchandise.

“As a community, I would love to change the tone of our conversation. To figure out, OK — true, this is where we are falling short. But what do we do as a community to make sure that our sport is front and center with all the other properties out there?”

Change can be hard. But it can also be good. When it's right in front of your face, you just have to see which way it's pointing, Joyner-Kersee saying, “With that change, now you have athletes wanting to know: where is the office?”

USATF bids for kumbaya, for real

INDIANAPOLIS — For years, USA Track & Field was arguably the most dysfunctional of the major sports federations in the American Olympic scene. Personality politics ruled. Budgets stayed flat. Almost every decision seemed to be met with argument or that more basic question: what’s in it for me?

As any business or management expert would affirm, culture change is maybe the hardest thing ever.

Underway now at USATF, for anyone not stuck in the past and willing to look with more than a glancing pass, is a profound culture shift for the better.

Instead of being combative — first, last and always — USATF increasingly finds itself on the road to collaboration and cooperation.

A session Saturday at an Indianapolis hotel room underscored that reality amid a master’s class in leadership from Steve Miller, the USATF board chair, and Max Siegel, the organization’s chief executive.

Siegel came dressed for the meeting in an untucked business shirt; Miller, in a black polo and black loafers with no socks. Ties and jackets? No way. Disarming? To the, well, max.

Siegel called the session Saturday a “conversation” among “key stakeholders.”

Miller said, “Together we have a chance to change the sport. Separately, we have no chance.”

At another point, Miller said, “We are in this together. We have a chance to move the organization forward. We have a chance to do some things that have never been done before. We have a chance to end the repetitiveness of the five-year, the 10-year, the 20-year conversations,” the loop that inevitably led to accusations, drama, friction and more, almost none of it constructive.

Under the direction of Siegel, chief executive since May 2012, USATF has made significant financial strides. Its 2016 budget is a projected $35 million, about double what it has been in recent years — and that is without the benefit of the roughly $500 million 23-year Nike deal, which kicks in the year after.

USATF’s logical next step: streamlining its governance.

In the wake of a meeting three weeks ago at which USATF and its Athlete Advisory Committee agreed in principle on a revenue distribution plan that will deliver $9 million in cash to athletes over the next five years, the session at Indianapolis’ Alexander Hotel was called to bring together nearly 50 people — from all over the country — to discuss “law and legislation” changes.

That is, governance.

As Duffy Mahoney, USATF’s chief of high performance, said Saturday, there’s a big difference between governance and politics.

Politics is important, of course, and grabs headlines.

Governance gets stuff done.

No one cares about governance until, actually, they do care.

The close cousin of governance is process. Process is not sexy. No one cares about process.

Again, until they do care.

Example A: the process by which the USATF board last year chose Stephanie Hightower, now the USATF president, to be the federation’s nominee to the IAAF council, the sport’s international governing body, in place of Bob Hersh, who had served for 16 years.

Hightower would go on in August to be the highest vote-getter at IAAF elections in Beijing.

The process, which played out at last year’s USATF annual meeting in Anaheim, California, called first for a general assembly vote.

Most importantly, though arguably not well-communicated, that vote was merely a recommendation to the USATF board of directors — who could overrule it, by two-thirds vote.

Hersh won the floor vote.

The board, though, selected Hightower, believing in her and in a new direction amid major changes coming up at the IAAF, including the election of a new president to replace Lamine Diack of Senegal, who served atop the international federation for 16 years.

In August, the IAAF picked Britain’s Seb Coe as its new president. He defeated Ukraine’s Sergei Bubka.

On Saturday,  two activists spoke at length in favor of proposed rules changes -- Becca Peter, who lives near Seattle, and David Greifinger, a Santa Monica, California-based lawyer.

Greifinger returned time and again to the same theme: democracy.

"That has worked in this country for a long time," he said at one moment.

For sure.

But the United States is not a pure democracy. It is a representative democracy.

As Miller observed, "The popular vote in our country does not always elect the president."

Moreover, democracy is not the same as leadership. And what nations, companies and non-profit sports organizations such as USATF need way more of is less pure democracy -- the USOC slimmed its board down from 115 to 15, and USATF is also down to 15 from 32 and, before that, over 100 -- and more leadership.

"It's one of those things about leadership," Miller said. "You don’t get elected and [suddenly] know everything about leadership."

Nothing at Saturday’s meeting will in any way prove binding. Indeed, the entire thrust was to set the stage for this year’s annual get-together, in about five weeks in Houston.

Two proposals -- both sparked by the process that saw Hightower picked for the IAAF -- may well show up in Houston:

The first, advanced by Peter: to bar the IAAF council member from simultaneously serving as USATF president or CEO. In Saturday’s straw poll, that got two votes.

“You have to get the best person for the job,” the agent Tony Campbell said. “If the best person is wearing two hats, so be it.”

The second: to provide that the USATF general assembly elect the IAAF rep. Straw vote: one in favor.

“Why change this now?” asked Robin Brown-Beamon, the Florida-based association president. "It worked.”

To laughter in the room, Sharrieffa Barksdale, the 1984 Olympic hurdler, said, referring to Greifinger, "If you have ever seen the movie ‘Frozen,’ David — let it go!”

An even-better cultural touchstone, referred to indirectly several times by Miller: "We're all in this together," the pitch-perfect tune from the 2006 hit movie "High School Musical."

This was the theme three weeks ago, at the meeting with the athletes that led to agreement.

And that set the tone for Saturday’s get-together.

Reminding one and all that the metric that matters most is how many medals the U.S. team collects next summer at the Rio 2016 Games, Moushami Robinson, a gold medalist in the women's 4x400 relay at the Athens 2004 Olympics, said, “It’s time to move past the residue so we can get done what we need to get done.”

Added Dwight Phillips, the 2004 Olympic and four-time world long jump champion who is now chair of the Athletes’ Advisory Committee, “It has always been competitive: ‘Let’s fight, let’s fight, let’s fight.’ How about, ‘Let’s compromise, let’s come to an agreement.’ And we’ll see progress.”

To be sure, disagreement and discussion are always part of any institutional process. And that’s totally healthy.

At the same time, USATF’s long-running dysfunction, the temptation to immediately and vociferously wonder if the sky is falling, and now, often bore echoes of the same woes that for years beset the U.S. Olympic Committee — until the USOC, too, made needed governance changes (slimming down that board of directors) and putting people in place who know what they’re doing (in particular, chief executive Scott Blackmun, in early 2010).

Now it’s USATF’s turn to look forward — to acknowledge that while discussion and dissent have a place, so, too, do compromise and turning the page.

Another proposal advanced by Greifinger:

— The USATF board now numbers 15. Six are representatives of what’s called “constituent-based” groups, including youth, officials and coaches. The current reps are selected by a process that includes nominations and slates and further complications. What if those six reps were elected by their constituents?

The consensus Saturday: fine.

Even so, it was also generally agreed, whoever gets put up for any of those six slots must pass some sort of vetting. Details obviously remain to be worked out but it's common-sense they would include a background check, drug testing and, to be obvious, a passport for the international travel that track and field demands.

And this notion, put forward by Rubin Carter and Lionel Leach:

— Make the CEO “confer and agree” with volunteer leadership on a variety of decisions.

Confer? Sure, as appropriate, Siegel said.

Secure agreement? Not workable, Siegel said, to widespread assent.

How could he sign off on this deal or that if he had to secure the OK of volunteers who might -- or very well might not -- hold particular expertise?

Siegel also noted the unintended consequence of such a provision: “no accountability for my performance.” If everything had to be run by volunteers of different stripes, how in the real world to gain an accurate measure of what Siegel did, or didn't, get done?

This, of course, is exactly the move the USOC made -- away from volunteer leadership and toward empowerment of a professional CEO and staff.

Houston and the annual meeting await.

For the first time in a long time, maybe ever, the focus at USATF is not on what happened before -- the recrimination attendant to reliving and rehashing the past.

As Miller said, “We are in this together. We have a chance to move the organization forward.

“We have a chance to do some things that have never been done before," on the track and and off: "We have a chance to end the repetitiveness of the five-year, the 10-year, the 20-year conversation.”

U.S. track and field: a 'monumental' step forward

When Max Siegel took over some three-plus years ago as chief executive of USA Track & Field, things were hardly all roses. For one, he didn’t come up within the sport. That meant, as the former long-jump champion Dwight Phillips, now the chair of the USATF Athletes Advisory Council, put it, “He wasn’t one of us.” That meant suspicion and scrutiny. Big time. From the start, Siegel made it clear the federation’s financial picture had to improve. At the same time, he also pledged collaboration. On Saturday, in a six hour-plus meeting at the Indiana Ballroom at the downtown Marriott in Indianapolis, Siegel and other USATF officials, working in concert with the athletes themselves, hammered out a historic plan that ought to do nothing less than re-shape the conversation about being a U.S. athlete in track and field and, as well, perhaps re-invent the industry.

Bottom line, though there are tons of fascinating details: USATF and the AAC agreed in principle on a revenue distribution plan that will deliver $9 million in cash to athletes over the next five years.

Unsaid, though totally obvious given USATF’s roughly $500 million arrangement with Nike, a landmark deal that Siegel negotiated and that kicks in come 2017: this could, maybe should, be just the tip of the iceberg.

“First and foremost,” said Phillips, “it was a monumental day. We made a pivotal move within the organization to [cement] the relationships between the athletes and the national office.”

Echoed Will Leer, the middle-distance standout, “You know, this isn’t blowing smoke: for the first time at a meeting I have been to between the AAC and the national office, and with all the interested parties — we actually got together and got something done.”

He added a moment later, “We came up with something I think the athletes are going to be very happy about. You can’t please everyone, obviously. But this is an enormous step forward in the professionalization of our sport.”

Wallace Spearmon, who for 10 years has been one of the best in the world at the 200 meters, said, “The chemical make-up of track and field is changing, and it is beginning with USATF and the AAC.”

He also said, “With Dwight — I haven’t seen track changing so much as it has in the few months since he took over,” as the AAC chair.

“Max — when he first took over … I said to him, ‘We have been scarred before. This is no fault of your own. But you have to prove yourself to me. I don’t know you. You don’t know me. Right now, I don’t trust you.’ He took that for what it was; I didn’t mean any disrespect. Moving forward: year one, year two — I was actually impressed.

“And this,” meaning Saturday’s action, “feels like a step toward a brighter future.”

Last December, at the USATF annual meeting in Anaheim, California, Siegel had pledged $9 million in incremental funds to athletes.

How to divvy it up?

The meeting Saturday stemmed from a long-running conversation — which Siegel had asked the AAC to undertake — about how to define who was, or should be classified as, a professional track and field athlete.

Someone who wins a gold medal at the Olympics? For sure.

Someone who enters a race somewhere and wins, say, $500? Way more problematic.

At the meeting, with 19 athlete officers and event leaders and other high-performance personalities in attendance, along with Siegel and USATF officials such as Duffy Mahoney, the chief of sport performance, and Renee Washington, the chief operating officer, that conversation segued into something less elusive and more constructive.

Instead of trying to define who was or wasn’t a professional track or field athlete, the group turned its focus to USATF’s key mission — winning medals at the world championships or Olympics.

USATF rightfully can, and does, claim many jobs at hand — everything from winning medals to inspiring young people to take up the sport. But the primary job is high-performance development and, with that, winning medals.

Medals are not only good for the winners themselves; they produce a trickle-down effect for anyone and everyone with an interest in U.S. track and field.

For his part, Siegel said, “From the outset, we focused on outcome, accountability, collaboration."

With all of that in mind, here is what was decided:

— Beginning in 2016, roughly $1.8 million per year in cash will be distributed.

— That money is over and above current USATF tier funding, development funding and other programs. (More on the tier system in a moment.)

— Roughly 75 percent of the added cash will be evenly distributed among athletes who qualify for the “world majors,” meaning the IAAF world outdoor championships or the Summer Games.

— In practice, this will mean what? A $10,300 award for making the worlds or Olympic team.

— The remaining 25 percent will be distributed as bonus money for athletes who win a medal at the worlds or Olympics.

— In practice, this will mean what? Gold gets you $25,000; silver, $15,000; bronze, $10,000.

— Those who run in the relays, at least one round, will share equally in the amount of a bonus.

— All this is independent of any shoe contract deal or other endorsement; Diamond League or other international meet prize money; or appearance fees.

On tiers:

USATF classifies athletes into tiers — One, Two, Three and, cleverly enough, Four.

Those in One and Two are considered “elite”; in Three and Four, “emerging elite.”

Far and away, statistics show, medals get won by those in One and Two, and mostly One.

To be in One: you are a medalist, individual or relay, at at least one of the two most recent “world majors” and/or have a world top-10 ranking by Track & FIeld News and/or the website all-athletics.com.

Currently in One: 106 athletes.

Two: you made the top-eight at one of the two most recent “world majors” and/or are ranked world top-20 at all-athletics.com.

Currently in Two: 49 athletes.

In sum: the two tiers account for 155 athletes. Generally speaking, 130 athletes make a “world majors” team.

Why, once everyone got in the same room with the same vibe, did this turn out to be relatively straightforward?

Because, and this isn’t rocket science — it’s return on investment.

The U.S. team won 18 medals at the 2015 Beijing world championships. It’s obviously, just to take one important example, a better result for USATF and for track and field in the United States if, next August in Rio, the Americans take home a number in the mid- or even upper-20s.

To illustrate how all this might actually work for 2016 for an athlete, him or herself:

To start, a Tier One athlete is eligible now for $25,422 in annual support. This includes an athlete and medical stipend, and if the athlete names a coach, a coaching stipend for that coach; dollars to travel to domestic competitions; health insurance; and medical support services.

Now add in the new 10k.

As a baseline, you’re now at $35,422.

Over the last several years, USATF has doubled prize money at its national championships. First place at next year’s U.S. Olympic Trials will be worth $10,000; there’s a sliding scale that sees second worth $8,000, third $6,000, fourth $4,000, fifth $2,000 and $1,000 apiece for sixth and seventh.

First place at the U.S. indoors will be worth $5,000.

Let’s say you win at the indoors and take second at the Trials. That’s $5,000 plus another $8,000.

Now that $35,422 is $48,422.

At world majors, there’s a medals bonus that the U.S. Olympic Committee awards on behalf of USATF. It’s called “Operation Gold.” In 2016, gold will be worth 25k, silver 15k, bronze 10k.

Let’s say you take second at the Olympics.

That means 15k from Operation Gold plus another 15k from USATF. Now that $48,422 is $78,422.

The fine print:

Siegel and Phillips this week are due to sign a memorandum of agreement; additional details are scheduled to be worked out in the next 30 days. The program will be reviewed in the weeks before the 2015 annual meeting, in about two months in Houston, and finalized there.

What sorts of additional details?

Leer: “It seems like it could be construed as we could be paying athletes to stifle discourse — paying to shut them the hell up so we don’t have another Nick Symmonds episode,” a reference to the 800-meter runner who opted out of the 2015 Beijing worlds, citing a dispute with USATF over the wearing of national-team gear.

“This needs to be ironed out. But I think most athletes — they’re going to say, “Now we are getting paid to be at a championship, getting paid to represent our country.’ When you are getting paid, there is expectation.

“… You are expected to come there and perform. If you come and perform, you get rewarded.

“It’s a job like anything else and this goes toward rewarding the workers, who are the athletes. I’m pretty excited about it.”

So, too, Symmonds, who in a telephone interview Monday said, "I am really really pleased with this. It’s a huge step in the right direction."

He also quipped, referring to the roughly 10k making-the-team award, "I just wish I could retroactively get the $70,000 for the last seven teams that I made."

So, too, Darvis “Doc” Patton, the former sprinter, who like Philips called the development “monumental.”

He said, “This is something that makes me wish I could come back to the sport. It makes me want to come back and compete again.

“Given the history of [USATF] meetings, you went in like, OK, I’m going to brace myself for whatever. It wasn’t that at all. If I had to use one word, I would say ‘productive’ — it was a productive meeting.”

Mahoney chose “ground-breaking,” adding, “I think it changes the direction of the dialogue between us and the athletes. We are cooperating. And we are cooperating on trying to provide as many resources for elite and emerging elite athletes as we can.”

Red, white and maybe feeling blue?

BEIJING — Coming into these 2015 track and field world championships, it looked for — and to —  all the world like this could be the meet when the American team finally reached that elusive 30-total medal count.

With the meet now at its (just-past) halfway point, that looks exceedingly unlikely. The question now is more fundamental: is this 2015 performance a blip or a precursor for next year’s Rio 2016 Summer Games and, indeed, beyond?

Coming into Wednesday, four nights into the nine-day meet, the United States had exactly as many golds as Canada: one.

The American Joe Kovacs won the men’s shot put; the Canadian Shawn Barber, the men’s pole vault.

After Wednesday, the United States still had -- one. 

The Brits? Three. The Americans' new political friends in Cuba? Two.

Overall, Kenya led the medal count, with 11, six gold; the Americans were next, with nine (that one gold, three silver, five bronze).

Kenya is not just marathoners anymore. Julius Yego won the men's javelin Wednesday night with the farthest throw in 14 years, 92.72 meters, or 304 feet, 2 inches.

Meanwhile, the IAAF announced earlier in the evening that two Kenyans, Francisca Koki and Joyce Zakari, had tested positive after providing samples on August 20 and 21, respectively — that is, immediately before the meet started. These “targeted tests were conducted by the IAAF at the athlete hotels,” the federation said in a statement. No other details were immediately available.

The run-up to the 2015 championships has been marked by waves of media reports alleging doping positives and cover-ups in the Kenyan track and field scene.

Zakari had run second in her 400 heat in 50.71, then proved a no-show for the first of Tuesday’s three semifinals.

Koki, in the 400 hurdles, ran 58.96 in her opening round, second-slowest in the entire field.

For the U.S. to prevail in the medals count next year at Rio, as it did in London 2012, with 103, China next at 88, the weight rests on its track and swim teams.

In London, the swim team won 30 medals at the pool, 31 including Haley Anderson’s silver in the open-water competition. The track team: 29.

A few weeks ago at the 2015 world swim championships in Kazan, Russia, the U.S. team ended up with 23 medals, eight gold. That’s arguably misleading, though, because two of those medals came in the mixed relays, which would be new Olympic events. So: 21.

Of course, Michael Phelps did not swim in Kazan and threw down three world-best performances that same week at the U.S. nationals. Even so, it was arguably the American team’s poorest performance at a worlds dating to 1973; in 1994, the Americans went home from Rome with 21 medals, four gold.

For the track team, expectations had soared before this meet in Beijing, the U.S. sending arguably its deepest team ever.

To be sure, the Americans have had some successes. In the women’s 10,000 meters, for example, U.S. runners went 3-4-6, Emily Infeld passing Molly Huddle at the line for the bronze, Shalane Flanagan taking sixth.

Shamier Little, with a bright green bow in her hair, and Cassandra Tate went 2-3 Wednesday night in the women's 400 hurdles. Zuzana Hejnova of the Czech Republic, the Moscow 2013 champion who had spent most of 2014 recovering from a broken bone in her left foot, dominated again in a 2015 world best 53.50. Little ran 53.94, Tate 54.02.

The final events Wednesday night, however, proved hugely emblematic of American performance:

Only one American, Justin Gatlin, had even made it through the heats to the semifinals of the men’s 200. He ran an easy 19.87 to move on to the finals, that 19.87 the second-fastest semifinal time ever at a worlds; Francis Obikwelu ran 19.84 in 1999.

Justin Gatlin's 19.87 in the men's 200m semi tonight was the second-fastest semifinal time ever at the World Championships. The fastest: Nigeria's Francis Obikwelu's 19.84, in 1999.

In the next heat, Usain Bolt, who defeated Gatlin in the 100 Sunday night by one-hundredth of a second, ran a season-best 19.95, chatting with South Africa's Anaso Jobodwana in the next lane, second in 20.01, as they crossed the line. 

In the women's pole vault, American Jenn Suhr, the 2012 Olympic champion, afforded a huge opportunity because Russia's Yelena Isinbayeva was not jumping (the all-time pole vault diva gave birth last June to a daughter), managed a tie for fourth, at 4.70 meters, or 15 feet, 5 inches -- along with another American, Sandi Morris, a rising college star, and Sweden's Angelica Bengtsson.

Cuba's Yarisley Silva won, with 4.90, or 16-0 3/4. Brazil's Fabiana Murer took second, at 4.85, 15-11. Greece's Nikoleta Kyriakopoulo got third, at 4.80, 15-9.

Silva made three attempts at 5.01, 16-5, but did not clear. Isinbayeva holds the world record, 5.06, 16-7, set six years ago.

Emma Coburn had been a medal hope in the women's 3000 steeplechase. She finished fifth, in 9:21.78. Hyvin Kiyeng Jepkemoi of -- where else? -- Kenya took gold, in 9:19.11. Habiba Shribi of Tunisia came second, 13-hundredths back, Gesa Felicitas Krause of Germany in a personal-best 9:19.25, 14-hundredths behind.

The men's 400 proved super-crazy fast.

The American LaShawn Merritt, the Moscow 2013 and Beijing 2008 Olympic champion, in Lane 8, went out hard early on the way to personal-best 43.65. He got second.

South Africa's Wayde Van Niekerk ran 43.48, unequivocally the fastest time of 2015. Kirani James of Grenada got third, in a season-best 43.78, Luguelin Santos of the Dominican Republic fourth in a national-record 44.11.

Van Niekerk's best before Wednesday had been more than a half-second slower, 43.96. His 43.48 makes him the fourth-fastest man ever at the distance: Michael Johnson (43.18), Butch Reynolds, Jeremy Wariner.

The second-, third- and fourth-place finishes? The fastest times for those positions ever at a worlds.

Van Niekerk was taken off the track in a stretcher. His condition was not immediately available.

Merritt's silver tied him with Carl Lewis as the most successful American man in worlds history, with 10 medals. He has five 4x400 relay medals (all gold, dating to 2005) and five in the open 400 (two gold, three silver).

Watch out going forward, meantime, for Isaac Makwala of Botswana, fifth in 44.63.

Makwala had shown up big-time in the semifinals, with the field’s top time, 44.11, and from the outside lane. With an electric-green sleeve on his right arm, he dropped after the finish line and gave the crowd five push-ups, a signal that the semis amounted to nothing more than a training run.

For literally decades, the 400 has been an American stronghold, dominated by the likes of Johnson, Reynolds, Wariner and Merritt. Indeed, aside from 2011 and 2001, an American athlete had won the 400 at every worlds dating to 1991.

Merritt took second in 2011 when James announced his arrival on the world stage; Merritt was coming back that year from a doping ban, and he and James have since traded off titles, James winning in London in 2012, Merritt in Moscow in 2013.

Any discussion of what this all means, if anything, must start with the acknowledgement that the rest of the world has gotten way better at events that Americans used to regularly be able to count on for production in the medals count.

To take another beyond the men’s 400, consider the men’s 400 hurdles:

Helsinki 2005, for instance: two medals, gold and silver. Osaka 2007: one, gold. Berlin 2009, one, gold.

Daegu 2011: zero, with Britain, Puerto Rico and South Africa 1-2-3, the best Americans sixth and seventh.

Moscow 2013: one, a silver, Jehue Gordon of Trinidad & Tobago winning, Emir Bekric of Serbia taking third.

Beijing 2015: Kenya-Russia-Bahamas went 1-2-3.

The Americans finished fourth (Kerron Clement, the 2007 and 2009 world champion who had spent 2014 battling injuries) and eighth (Michael Tinsley, the 2012 Olympic and 2013 worlds silver medalist, in 50.02, after crashing through the eighth hurdle).

Two Americans had put down the year’s best time before this meet, Bershawn Jackson, 48.09, and Johnny Dutch, 48.13. Neither made it to the final.

For emphasis: Kenya had won 45 gold medals at the worlds, dating to 1983, but none before Tuesday night had come in an event shorter than 800 meters.

Tuesday night’s winner: Kenya's Nicholas Bett, in a national record and 2015 world-leading time, 47.79. From Lane 9, again far on the outside.

“I am happy to win this first 400-meter hurdles medal ever for Kenya,” Bett said afterward. “I am thankful.”

Russia’s Denis Kudryavtsev, in 48.05, took one-hundredth off a national record that had stood for 17 years.

Jeffrey Gibson of the Bahamas ran a national record 48.17. That broke his own record, 48.37, which he had run in the semifinals.

“I am looking forward to more races and more training for the Olympic season,” he said afterward.

It must be acknowledged, as the New York Times pointed out in a story after Tuesday's finals, that U.S. coaches are playing a significant role in the success of other nations, and in events, such as the long jump, where memories of American success — Carl Lewis, Mike Powell, Dwight Phillips — run long.

In Tuesday night’s long jump final, the gold (Britain’s Greg Rutherford) and silver (Australian Fabrice Lapierre) medals went to athletes who train near Phoenix with the American Dan Pfaff; the bronze, China’s first long jump medal at a worlds, went to Wang Jianan, who trains with the American Randy Huntington.

The top American? Jeff Henderson, the 2015 Pan Am Games champion, ninth, one spot out of the finals.

Barber, the Canadian pole vault winner? He goes to college at the University of Akron.

As in any meet, injuries always play a role. The American 200-meter specialist Wallace Spearmon, for instance, scratched out of Tuesday’s heats upon reporting a small tear in his left calf muscle.

Beyond all that, it’s track and field, and stuff happens. Alysia Montaño, one of the best American racers in the women’s 800, in contention for a top-three finish in Wednesday’s heats, fell on the second lap after a tangle. She ended up getting disqualified.

In Tuesday night’s women’s 1500, Jenny Simpson, the Daegu 2011 gold and Moscow 2013 silver medalist, lost a shoe. She finished 11th. Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba, one of the sport’s brightest new stars, won in 4:08.09.

Hopes were high in the men’s steeplechase Monday night that, for the first time ever at a world championship, the Americans — specifically, Evan Jager — might win a medal. Jager led at the bell lap but finished sixth. The Kenyans went 1-2-3-4.

How, meanwhile, to explain the men’s triple jump?

Two Americans, Marquis Dendy and Will Claye, could not summon enough Wednesday morning to make the final.

Coming in, Dendy had the year’s fourth-best jump, Claye the fifth; Claye, moreover, is an incredibly versatile athlete who at the 2012 London Games became the first man since 1936 to win medals in both the long jump (silver) and the triple jump (bronze).

Wendy, afterward: “I can’t be too, too mad, but I am disappointed.”

Claye: “I’m still in shock. I don’t even know what happened. It just wasn’t my day. That’s the only way I can see it. I went out there and gave it my all. It just wasn’t my day. I have to make my rules and get ready for next season.”

Mo Farah's double double-double

Distance running is a hard, lonely affair. The tell is the last kilometer. The crucible is the last lap. In our time, one man has emerged -- from among the Kenyans, the Ethiopians, the Eritreans -- to dominate, truly dominate, track's two distance events, the 5,000 and the 10,000 meters. He is Mo Farah, a global citizen who was born in Somalia, trains in Oregon, runs for Great Britain.

Farah won the 5,000 meters Friday night at Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium by the narrowest of margins, crossing in 13:26.98. In so doing, he won not just a double-double but has now performed an amazing double double-double.

That is -- he won both the 5 and 10k here in Moscow. At last year's London Olympics, he won both the 5 and 10k as well. At the 2011 worlds in Daegu, South Korea, Farah won the 5k; he lost the 10k by 26-hundredths of a second to Ibrahim Jeilan of Ethiopia, whom he beat in this year's 10k by two steps.

Only Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia has done the worlds double, in 2009. Bekele also doubled up at the 2008 Beijing Games. And the word "legendary" is typically attached to Bekele now as if it were his first name instead of Kenenisa.

"It was a lot harder work than last year." Farah said afterward. "I never thought in my career that I'd achieve something like this."

The finish of Friday's 5k was so fantastic that it was, genuinely, an instant classic.

Hagos Gebrhiwet of Ethiopia finished second, Isiah Kiplangat Koech of Kenya third. Both were timed in 13:27.26. They had to go to the thousandths to separate them: Gebrhiwet crossed, the clock said, in 13:27.259, Koech in 13:27.260.

It couldn't get any closer.

Of course, for track freaks it made for a sort of holy grail. But for anyone who appreciates will and effort, it shows why track can still claim such a powerful hold on the imagination -- and why, despite the malevolent ill of doping that has corrupted so much in the sport over the past several years, a race like Friday's 5k and its finish offers such tangible evidence of what it can still be all about.

It's three guys pushing themselves, to their limits, to get to the finish line first. Who wants it most?

Of course, this all assumes -- and there is no, repeat no, evidence to date -- that Farah is guilty of anything other than being very, very good.

With that caveat:

With three laps to go in the race, Farah went to the front. The others in the race lined up behind, among them his training partner, the American Galen Rupp, the silver medalist in the 10k in London.

A little math, for those unfamiliar with the 5k on the track.

A track is of course 400 meters. The 5000 -- this is fourth-grade math, but just to make it easy -- is 12 and one-half laps.

The races tend to start slow but then pick up toward the end. That, too, is only sensible.

A little more math, for reference:

The best 400-meter runners, like the American LaShawn Merritt, run championship races in about 44 seconds. A truly exceptional 400 winner goes 43-something.

What happens in the 5 and 10k is that after lap after numbing lap, the body starts screaming, "Stop - this hurts, and bad." That, though, is precisely when the best distance guys have to turn on the jets and run a last kilometer of about 2:20-something and a last lap of roughly 51 to 53 something. Anything less -- no chance.

In Farah's winning 10k in Moscow, he needed a 2:26.23 final kilometer to hold off Jeilan.

In Friday's 5k, he ran a 2:22.29 last kilometer. That is simply flying.

His last 800: about 1:51.

Last 600: 1:21.93.

Last lap: 53.51.

The difference between first and third in Friday's 5k, 28-hundredths of a second, is the smallest-ever in a world championships. The previous smallest differential: 33-hundredths, at the 2003 worlds in Paris.

Rupp finished eighth, in 13:29.87.

Farah also said this: "Anything is possible, I guess."

In other action Friday, Jamaica's Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce also doubled up, winning the women's 200 meters to go with the 100 she won Monday.

She became the first winner of the women's sprint double since 1991.

Fraser-Pryce made it look like a breeze: 22.17.

Murielle Ahoure of the Ivory Coast, the silver medalist in the 100, took second in the 200, too, in 22.32. They had to go to the thousandths in the women's 100 as well; Ahoure was timed in  22.313.

Blessing Okagbare of Nigeria, who is also having a fantastic meet, took third, also in 22.32; precisely, 22.319. Okagbare won silver in the long jump on Sunday behind American Brittney Reese, with a jump of 6.99 meters, or 22 feet, 11-1/4 inches. On Monday, she ran sixth in the 100, finishing in 11.04.

American Allyson Felix, going for a record fourth world title in the 200, didn't make it out of the curve, crumpling to the track, holding the back of her leg. She was carried off by her brother, Wes, who is also her manager; an ultrasound revealed a tear of her right medial hamstring, USA Track & Field announced.

She said later she was "extremely devastated" but in classic Allyson Felix form took the time and effort to nonetheless wish "all of my teammates the best for the rest of the meet."

The U.S. men's 4x400 relay won -- and the only drama was whether there would be a dropped baton.

There was not.

David Verburg ran a 44.37 to open things up. Tony McQuay, the 400 silver medalist, split a 44.68. Arman Hall ran 44.92. Merritt, the 400 gold medalist, ran 44.74 to close things down, and the Americans won by more than a second, finishing in 2:58.71, 2013's best time.

Jamaica took second, 2:59.88, Russia third, 2:59.9.

For Hall, it was his fifth world championship medal in three years -- 2011 world youth 400 and sprint medley relay champion, 2012 world junior 400 champ and 4x400 relay and, now, his first senior title.

The United States, minus Merritt, took silver in London last year.

Germany's David Storl defended his shot-put title with a throw of 21.73 meters, or 71-3 1/2, the first back-to-back winner since American John Godina in the mid-1990s. To celebrate, he put on a silly hat.

American Ryan Whiting came in second at 21.57, or 70-9 1/4.

Canada's Dylan Armstrong, with a throw of 21.34, or 70 1/4, got third. That medal is Canada's fourth, its best-ever total at a worlds.

In the men's long jump, American Dwight Phillips, 35 years old, the 2004 Athens Games gold medalist, four times a world champion -- most recently in 2011 -- had hoped Moscow would produce one final leap for the record books.

It was not to be.

The oldest man ever to jump in the final of a world championships, Phillips jumped 7.88 meters, or 25-10 1/4, on his third attempt. But he did not advance, and finished 11th.

"Today I gave everything I had, and it just wasn't enough," Phillips said. "Obviously I was looking for that storybook ending but I'm so proud of myself."

In the men's 200, Usain Bolt ran a 20.66 in the first round, 20.12 in the semifinals. The finals go down Saturday.

The heats of the women's 100-meter hurdles got underway with American sensation Brianna Rollins qualifying in 12.55.

Australia's Sally Pearson, the 2012 Games gold medalist, served notice that she may be -- finally in 2013 -- ready to rock with a season-best 12.62. Dawn Harper, the London silver medalist and 2008 Beijing gold medalist, got through easily in 12.84.

The 100 hurdles semifinals and finals are also set for Saturday.

'...Big things' for 2011 U.S. track team

DAEGU, South Korea -- Christian Taylor, 21 years old, won the triple jump Sunday at the 2011 track championships with an audacious leap of 17.96 meters, 58 feet, 11 1/4 inches, the fifth-best in history. He declared afterward, in the tone of a respectful competitor, not a jerk, "I came to win." Will Claye is just 20 years old. Both Claye and Taylor were going to be seniors at the University of Florida until turning pro. What are the odds that these would be the two guys finishing 1-3 at the worlds in the same event? Yet that's what happened, Claye jumping a personal-best 17.5, or 57-5. He said, "We came out here, did our best and ended up doing big things."

The American team did, indeed, do big things.

First and foremost, it topped the medal table, with 25, the second-highest medal total at a worlds for Team USA, one shy of the 26 won by the 1991 and 2007 teams.

But for the thoroughly unexpected, the American team actually could have reached the elusive 30 mark, which would have been sweet validation indeed for Doug Logan, the vanquished former chief executive of USA Track & Field, who had said all along that 30 was eminently do-able -- only to get sent packing before the plans he had put in place to get to 30 could be realized.

The Americans put four men in the final 12 in shot put, an event the U.S. has dominated in recent years. None got a medal. The U.S. has also been strong in the 400-meter men's hurdles; no medals there in Daegu despite two finalists. The Americans took home no medals in pole-vaulting, men's or women's, a traditional strength.

And, once again, in the very last event of the championships, the men's 400 relay, an event won by the Jamaicans -- anchored by Usain Bolt -- in world-record time, 37.04, the American men did not get through without disaster.

The 2008 Olympics, the 2009 world champs and now these 2011 worlds -- all DQs. This one involved a collision on the final exchange involving American Darvis Patton and Britain's Harry Aikines-Aryeetey. Details, even after repeated viewings of the tape, remain sketchy.

"I felt his big knee in my arm," Aikines-Aryeetey said in a television interview.

Under no circumstances would the Americans have beaten the Jamaicans. Even so, Justin Gatlin, who had run the second leg, said, "You can't tell me we weren't going to set an American record."

Stepping back to assess the U.S. team's "big things" over the nine days of the meet:

The 12 medals won by the U.S. women are the most-ever; the 1993 team won 11.

Allyson Felix didn't win individual gold in her 200/400 double. But she did win silver in the 400, bronze in the 200 and gold in both the 400 and 1600 relays. Four is the most medals ever won by a woman at one meet; American Gwen Torrance, Kathrin Krabbe of Germany and Marita Koch of East Germany also won four.

If Felix had been a country, the four medals she won would have tied her for seventh on the 2011 medals chart.

Also: those four medals lift Felix's career world-championships total won to 10. That ties her with Carl Lewis for most medals won by an American.

Jenny Simpson, 25 and still a newlywed (last October), won the first gold for the United States in the women's 1500 since 1983. Then, a couple days later, Matthew Centrowitz, 21, a fifth-year senior at Oregon, won bronze in the 1500.

The U.S. men swept the high jump, long jump and triple jump golds. The U.S. men -- Trey Hardee and Ashton Eaton -- went 1-2 in the decathlon. Dwight Phillips' long jump victory was his fourth at the worlds, to go along with his 2004 Olympic gold.

Phillips is 33, turning 34 in October. Bernard Lagat, who took silver Sunday night in the 5000, is 36, turning 37 in December. Lagat is the 2007 5000 and 1500 champ and, as well, the 2009 1500 bronze and 5000 silver medalist; he won silver at the 2004 Games in Athens when he was still running for Kenya.

Lagat, Phillips, Simpson, Centrowitz -- they illustrate the mix of veteran and younger talent that made up this team. That same sort of mix is likely to be on display next year for the United States track team at the Olympics in London.

"If Jenny can do it … if Matt can do it … if Bernard can still do it … I'm proud of my team," Lagat said.

Taylor, asked about the U.S. men sweeping the jumps, said, "It's about time. That's what I would say. Like I said, to have Dwight in the same group and having that family -- you know it's like, I wouldn't say a brother, but he's kind of old, so kind of like a dad! I mean, it's just been a great experience.

"The U.S. definitely represented and showed the world that we are the best team in the world."

So -- what does this performance here in Daegu mean for London?

Maybe a lot and perhaps very little.

LaShawn Merritt, the 2008 400 gold medalist, took silver in the event here and anchored the gold medal-winning 1600 relay. His future remains uncertain pending the outcome of litigation stemming from a 21-month doping-related suspension he has already served.

Tyson Gay, who had been America's best 100 and 200 sprinter, was hurt. Jeremy Wariner, the 2004 400 gold medalist -- hurt. Chris Solinsky, the 10,000-meter American record-holder -- hurt. Bryan Clay, the 2008 Olympic decathlon champ -- hurt. Standout hurdler Lolo Jones -- hurt. None of them competed here.

Do any or all of them make it to London? No one can predict.

Who knows whether Gay, who has struggled to stay healthy, can get fit?

Beyond which -- the brutal nature of the U.S. Trials, in which you're top-three or you stay home -- allows for no sentiment.

Just ask Phillips. He finished fourth at the Trials in 2008.

Or Simpson. "I mean, all this can do is bolster my confidence," she said.

But now Daegu is over, and London awaits. And she said, "I'm very cognizant of the fact this doesn't mean that I'm any shoo-in for any race following this."

Dwight Phillips' "1111" destiny

DAEGU, South Korea -- Fate is a funny thing. When he got here, Dwight Phillips was randomly assigned bib number "1111." Maybe, if you believe in these things, it wasn't so random.

Three times a world champion already, a win here would make -- obviously -- four. And there it was, spelled out on that bib. Four one's in a row. "Divine intervention," Phillips said.

With a second jump Friday night of 8.45 meters, or 27 feet, 8 3/4 inches, Phillips got that fourth championship. In so doing, he staked his claim as one of the finest long-jump champions in American history.

Bob Beamon. Mike Powell. Carl Lewis. These are names that are part not just of U.S. sports history but of American culture.

Of course, the fact is that all three of those gentlemen competed at a time when track and field occupied a very different place in the American sports firmament.

Beamon threw down his insane jump in Mexico City in 1968; Powell, the all-time jump in Tokyo 20 years ago; Lewis, that memorable last Olympic leap in Atlanta in 1996.

It's Dwight Phillips' lot that he is jumping now, when he has to fight for air time on ESPN with football, football and more football.

It's Dwight Phillips' fortune that, if Joe Fan were picked out of a crowd in the United States and  asked to name somebody famous in track and field, the likely two answers would be Carl Lewis or Usain Bolt, and one of those guys is Jamaican.

It's Dwight Phillips' predicament that, on the night that he won a fourth championship, to go along with the Olympic title he won in 2004, some number of the American writers here seemed way more interested in whether Allyson Felix, who got a bronze Friday night in the 200 to go along with the silver she won earlier here in the 400, was going to attempt the same double next year in London at the Olympics. Moreover, the four Americans in Friday night's shot put final -- none won a medal, and that created a buzz, too.

What's Dwight Phillips supposed to do about any of that?

Nothing, he figures, but be himself -- gracious in victory and, when it's the case, in defeat as well.

"I'm  a very positive person," he said. "LIfe for me is about being happy and smiling. I think I just enjoy  winning and I know how to deal with losing. Some people can't fathom losing. It kind of crushes them when they do. Me -- I embrace defeat just as I do victory."

When you lose, he said, "Obviously you're mad. You're angry at yourself. But then -- it's only track and field. It's only a track meet. There are so many more important things in life than athletics, and I try to keep things in perspective. Life is precious. You only live one time. I think you should live it with a smile."

And when you win, he said, and now he had a big smile, "It's euphoric."

Phillips knew losing and winning just this year.

At the U.S. championships, he finished tenth. Dreadful. He didn't even make the final.

That's what happens when you're hurt -- a woeful left Achilles tendon.  But, he said, he knew that if he could get himself healthy, and stay healthy, he could deliver here. "It's not how you respond in victory," he said. "It's how you respond in defeat."

Let's face it. At championships, Dwight Phillips is money.

The 2003 worlds -- gold. The 2004 Olympics -- gold. The 2005 worlds -- gold. The 2007 worlds -- bronze. The 2009 worlds -- gold.

Here, in qualifying, he jumped a season's-best 8.32, or 27-3 3/4, to lead the field.

In his first jump in the final, he went 8.31, 27-3 1/4. That was exactly the same distance he went in his qualifying jump in Athens in 2004. At this point, who wants to believe this stuff was all random? With all these omens? "It was déja vù all over again," Phillips said.

The second jump, that 8.45, nailed the gold.

"I came into this competition -- I wasn't even picked to make the final," he said, and that's true, publications such as Britain's Athletics Weekly noting that Phillips had "been in indifferent form."

Maybe that was a typographical error. As he proved yet again, at the worlds Dwight Phillips is, indeed, in different form.

"When it comes to long jump, over the last decade, I think it's about longevity -- if you compete over numerous years," he said. "And over the last decade, I've held it down for the USA. I've done my best to represent us well with integrity. I'm so grateful that I can even be mentioned [along] with those great athletes," meaning Lewis, Powell and Beamon.

"I admire them all so much."

Do you ever wish, he was asked, that you could go back in time -- to jump against each or all of them?

"Yeah, yeah. Oh, man, that would have been amazing. Every era has their own athlete. And this era belongs to Dwight Phillips."

Three U.S. golds, bang-bang-bang

DAEGU, South Korea -- An American woman hadn't won the 1500 meters at the track and field world championships since 1983. Those were the very first worlds, in Helsinki. And the winner of that race was the one and only Mary Decker. That's how long ago it was. In the high jump, an American man hadn't won a medal at these championships since 1991. Not just gold, any color. Twenty years.

An American woman hadn't won the 400-meter hurdles in 16 years.

Jennifer Simpson won the 1500, Jesse Williams won the high jump and Lashinda Williams the hurdles in bang-bang-bang fashion here Thursday night.

The rapid-fire string of victories, while cause for celebration in the American camp, pushing the U.S. into a tie with Russia for the lead for overall medals here in Daegu, with 12, also underscores the incredible conundrum that is the U.S. track and field program.

The United States produces, and keeps producing, world-class track and field athletes. But it does so in about as haphazard a way as one could imagine.

There is no bureau, no directorate, no anything responsible for finding, shaping, organizing a path from high school to college to the world championships to the Olympics. To generalize, it all kinda-sorta just happens.

That explains why, systemically, the United States of America can go 20 years without producing a medalist in the high jump. Why nearly 30 years can pass without a medal in the 1500, which is just astonishing. Anyone ever been to Boulder? Flagstaff? Mammoth Lakes?

There is no federalized sport system in the United States, and this is not to suggest there should be. Instead, the fantastic efforts of individual American athletes on a night like Thursday -- which tend to draw comparisons to the glory days of the U.S. track program -- obscure the structural problems that get in the way of what could be.

Because if the United States ever got serious, really serious, about winning in track and field -- watch out.

As it is, it's simply a matter of talent and moment.

The men's shot put here Friday night could be epic; of the 12 guys in the field, four are American. In the long jump, Dwight Phillips went a season-best 8.32 meters, or 27 feet, 3 3/4 inches, to lead everyone in qualifying Thursday morning; that final is Friday night, too. So is the women's 200; three of the eight in that final are American.

Meanwhile, the women's high jump on Saturday could be Brigetta Barrett's coming-out party on the world stage.

Talent and moment.

Simpson is a former steeplechaser. She used to be known as Jenny Barringer; she got married last year. She had the flu earlier this summer and came here with virtually no pre-race hype. In the semifinal, though, she showed was here to run. In the final, she ran easily and fluidly in and then kicked strong to the line, crossing in 4:05.40.

In the moments after she realized that she had won, Simpson looked simply stunned. Later, she asked rhetorically, "Wouldn't you be if you won a gold medal?"

She added, "I had another little Prefontaine moment," a reference to the 2009 Pre Classic in Eugene, Ore., when she was still in college at Colorado, and ran a 3:59.9 1500, breaking the NCAA record by more than six seconds.

"You know, I'm coming down the homestretch, and I'm thinking, 'How did I get here?' But it was just an incredible feeling, and I knew coming off the curve that I had another couple of gears and I thought, 'I'm going to be really hard to beat now.' "

Williams roared through the early rounds of the jumps without a miss. That proved critical.

Throughout, he knew what he was up against -- his own, and American, history.

These were his third world championships -- he had also competed in Helsinki in 2005 and Osaka in 2007 -- but the first time he had made a final. He is a self-styled high-jump history buff; he also knew full well that the last time Americans had medaled was in Tokyo in 1991, when Charles Austin won gold and Hollis Conway bronze.

Moreover, Williams came to Daegu as the presumptive favorite -- his jump earlier this year in Eugene, Ore., of 2.37 meters, or 7 feet, 9 1/4 inches, was the best anywhere.

Until he got to 2.37 here Thursday, Williams didn't miss; he was clean all the way to 2.35. Everyone else kept missing.

At 2.37, only he and Russia's Aleksey Dmitrik were left. By the time the bar was raised to that height, Dmitrik had already missed three times. Again, Williams -- zero.

If Dmitrik could clear 2.37, it would be a new game. But he couldn't.

Williams tried to clear but couldn't. No matter. The gold was his.

"I knew that 20 years ago, Charles Austin won it in Tokyo, and I knew that I could re-live what he lived, today," Williams said. "It's unbelievable, because the U.S. has so much talent in the event."

Dick Fosbury, the 1968 high-jump gold medalist who is now president of the World Olympians Assn., said in an e-mail, "This is fantastic news and I am so happy for Jesse," adding that he had been asked repeatedly recently about Russian jumpers and pointed out that the Americans, in Williams, had a guy who "could win this or medal."

He also said, "While we were disappointed in the Beijing results," Williams finishing 19th and not even making the final, "I really felt we could be back at the top by 2012. And now we are."

Demus, meanwhile, has been around for nearly a decade. She is a two-time world sliver medalist, in 2005 and 2009.

In 2007, she gave birth to twin boys, Duaine and Dontay. In winning Thursday in 52.47, she ran the best time in the world this year and broke the American record, 52.61, set by Kim Batten at the 1995 world championships in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Lashinda Demus had a ready answer for her success. "Only the strong survive in this game," she said, and there's no one stronger than her mother, Yolanda.

Yolanda Demus is a big fan of games such as Angry Birds. If you practice, Mrs. Demus said, you get better at them. So, she told her daughter, get out there and master the hurdles the way I have mastered Angry Birds.

You want a system? That's a system.

"She listens to every word I say," Mrs. Demus said. "That's one good thing about her. She listens."