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."

LaShawn Merritt: 'Losing only makes you stronger'

DAEGU, South Korea -- At the top of the stretch, it seemed that LaShawn Merritt, America's best 400-meter sprinter, had scripted the perfect coda to the bizarre saga of his lengthy suspension for taking a -- no easy way around this -- male-enhancement product two years ago. After roaring through the prelims and the semifinals, he had rounded the final curve and was in the lead; 100 more meters and victory would be his.

Alas, they don't write storybook tales quite like they used to -- not when there's litigation still ongoing, and Merritt's status for next year's Olympics is still in doubt, and the International Olympic Committee is bound and determined to keep him out of the London Games, even though Merritt is a nice guy and made a dumb mistake by going to a 7-Eleven and buying a product called ExtenZe and has paid for this mistake a thousand times over already in shame and embarrassment.

He deserves better, and so much of it could have all been wiped away if -- if, if, if -- he could have held on down the stretch on a perfect Tuesday night in Daegu, a night made for redemption.

Instead, Kirani James of Grenada, a two-time NCAA champion at the University of Alabama who turns 19 on Thursday, caught Merritt with about three meters to go, then passed him.

James finished first in a personal-best 44.60.

Merritt took second in 44.63.

Belgium's Kevin Borlee finished third, in 44.90.

James is the third-youngest male champion at the worlds; the youngest 400 winner; the first-ever medalist from Grenada.

"I don't need to be the Usain Bolt of the 400 meters," James said later when a reporter asked about the Jamaican superstar, as if that was somehow a natural comparison for everyone from a Caribbean island. "I'm happy to be Kirani James of Grenada."

Merritt said he wasn't quite sure why his gold turned silver at the last moment. "Just mechanical issues," he said. "I was focused on the finish line. Like I said, I didn't quite execute the way I wanted to. The 400 is all about execution. I came in with a game plan. Didn't quite stick to it. Not quite sure what went wrong throughout the race."

Merritt's immediate future now brings him the 1600 relay, later in this meet. Over that he can exert a measure of control.

Beyond that -- his fate is considerably more uncertain.

Merritt's suspension for taking ExtenZe ran to 21 months. It ended in July.

An IOC rule that took effect in 2008 purports to prevent athletes who receive doping bans of more than six months from competing at the next Summer or Winter Games.

The U.S. Olympic Committee's position, on Merritt's behalf, is that the "six-month rule," as it is widely known, amounts to double jeopardy -- a second penalty for a single offense.

The IOC has been resolute. It's their Games, they say, and they should have the right to decide who gets to take part. "The position of the IOC is very clear," president Jacques Rogge said at a news conference here a couple days ago. "For us, it is not a matter of sanction. It is a matter of eligibility."

Sport's top tribunal, the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport, after a hearing on the matter in August, said it intends to issue a verdict next month.

If CAS rules in Merritt's favor, the path to the Games is clear -- win, place or show at the U.S. Trials, just like normal.

If CAS rules against him, he's out -- even though he's the 2008 Beijing 400 champion, the 2009 world champion and, now, the 2011 silver medalist.

Training by himself for all these past months, Merritt said as he worked here through the rounds, had been arduous and lonely. Talk about punishment.

Sometimes, he said, he had others to train with but, mostly, he had been alone, putting himself through the physical grind and, more demanding yet, the mental discipline of asking himself -- how bad did he want it? He did time trial after time trial after time trial. He did extra stretching.

If he had been four-hundredths of a second faster, this story would have a different ending.

It was not to be.

"Nobody has a perfect season," LaShawn Merritt said, and here was newfound maturity and experience talking. "Losing only makes you stronger."

Jillian Camarena-Williams makes shot-put, and love, history

DAEGU, South Korea -- Sure, technique helps. Right, being healthy is huge. But when you're in love, really truly madly in love, the kind of love they write about in books and they make movies about, when your husband is your soulmate, and you're out there in front of the cheering thousands, and you've got to will yourself to go places you've never gone before, he's there with you.

It's true love. It is.

That's the kind of love that Jillian Camarena-Williams and her husband, Dustin, have, and it's why she won a bronze medal in the shot put Monday night at the 2011 track and field world championships with a throw of 20.02 meters, or 65 feet, 8 1/4 inches -- the first medal of any kind for an American woman in the history of the track worlds.

It's love, and if it seems improbable that love is the reason why Jillian did something no American had ever done before, it's not improbable to Jillian, to Dustin or to her coach, Craig Carter. Because when she was asked, an American flag draped around her, to explain how she had just made history, she said, with zero hesitation, "I married that man over there and I have that man over there as my coach."

It's almost as if fate has been pointing Jillian and Dustin toward this moment -- and, you'd have to suggest, London next year.

They met at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials, where she was competing and he was an athletic trainer. She went on to the Games, finishing 12th. When she came back, she moved up to Utah, where he was based, to finish a master's degree. They were friends first, then more. They were married in September, 2009.

She throws a big heavy ball. He runs Ironman-style competitions. To be around them is to feel that sense of union and balance you meet in precious few couples. You know it intuitively when you meet such a couple. They have it.

These last two seasons have been breakthroughs. Coincidence?

Last September, in Zurich, she finished third, throwing 19.5, or 63-11 3/4.

This June in Eugene, she threw 19.76, or 64-10, the best American throw since Ramona Pagel's American record of 20.18, or 66-2 1/2, in San Diego in June 1988.

This summer, competing regularly on the Diamond League circuit, she finished in the top three four times, saying Monday at a late-night news conference that being in the show regularly gave her the confidence to not just think but know that she absolutely belonged in the ring with the other top women in the world.

In Paris on July 8, she equaled Pagel's American record -- 20.18.

Here Monday evening, she threw 19.63, or 64-5, in the first round. That put her into the lead, though she -- and everyone else -- knew it wouldn't last, not with New Zealand's Valerie Adams and Nadzeya Ostapchuk, among others, around.

Her next two throws were considerably shorter. She said later she was just going too fast. In Round 3, meanwhile, Adams went 20.04.

In Round 4, calmer, Jillian threw 20.02, the second-best effort of her career. That launched her into second place.

In that same round, Adams went 20.72. The gold would be hers unless someone came up with something extraordinary.

In Round 5, Ostapchuk heaved the ball 20.05. That put her into second, Jillian into third.

Jillian's final two throws: 18.8 and 19.44.

The exclamation point: In Round 6, Adams went 21.24, or 69-8 1/4, the longest throw outdoors in 11 years, an area record, a personal best and, for good measure the widest winning margin (by 1.19 meters) in the history of the event at the world championships. As well, the gold was Adams' third in a row at the world championships; she won bronze in Helsinki in 2005.

The previous best American effort, meanwhile, came from Connie Price-Smith, who finished fifth in 1997, with a throw of 19.00. Here in Daegu, Connie is the American women's head coach. After Jillian had finished posing for photos and talking to a couple reporters, she walked right over to Connie; they exchanged a knowing glance and then hugged each other, and it was hard to tell who was happier.

When they get back to the States, Jillian and Dustin are going to be moving from Utah down to Tucson, to work with Craig, at the University of Arizona.

"Now that she found him," Craig said, pointing to Dustin, "we had to find him a job!"

Then he said, seriously, mindful that the London Games are 11 months away, and that no one can tear asunder what it is that Dustin and Jillian have together, "If we keep her healthy, a lot of good things will happen."

No fear, one DQ, two golds

DAEGU, South Korea -- John Smith, the Southern California track coach for whom there are two ways -- his way and the highway -- has a mantra he particularly likes. Fear, he says, is nothing but "false evidence appearing real." There's no fear in anything, he says. Get out there and 100 percent do your best. Just execute.

Pretty simple stuff, amazingly powerful stuff, and on a Monday night in Daegu, it led to two remarkable races, and yet more incredible twists at a meet that seems to have been summoned by destiny to produce the unpredictable. They will be talking not just about the women's 100 but, especially, about the men's 110 hurdles at these 2011 world championships for a long, long time.

Carmelita Jeter and Jason Richardson train with John Smith. The day after Usain Bolt was disqualified for false-starting in the men's 100, this went down:

Jeter, who had for years been chasing the dream of being champion, hammered to victory in the women's 100. She is 31 years old, will be 32 in November, and some will doubtlessly find her speed and victory now incredulous. She ran 10.90 to win.

And in the 110 hurdles, Richardson, the fourth guy in the race behind the so-called Big Three, initially appeared to have won silver behind Cuba's Dayron Robles, with China's Liu Xiang third, and David Oliver, the expected American star, fifth.

Robles crossed in 13.14; Richardson in 13.16; Liu in 13.27. Oliver went 13.44.

Robles ran in Lane 5, Liu in 6. Liu staggered to the line. A video review made plain why. Robles had made contact with him late, and not just once but twice.

As the video showed, Robles had drifted way toward the outside of Lane 5.

The first contact came over the ninth hurdle. That one seemed to disrupt Robles more than Liu.

The second contact, however, caused Liu to break stride heading into the tenth, and final, hurdle. He hit it with his trailing knee, stumbled off it and then lurched toward the finish.

After the race, the Chinese filed a protest, saying Robles ought to be disqualified. The race referee said, you're right, and an appeal jury upheld the referee's decision.

This is how Robles found out about it. He and Liu were in doping control together. Liu said, hey, I just heard on TV that you're out.

Really? Robles said.

"I'm really sorry about the situation," Liu said later at a news conference, adding, "I am good friends with Robles. What I like is a happy competition. I don't know what else to say."

This is how Richardson learned he had been moved up to gold:

He was down under the stadium, talking to a bunch of reporters about winning silver, when Robles stormed through without saying a word. Hey, guess what, the reporters said, Robles has been DQ'd. You're the gold medalist.

For Robles and Cuba, of course, this was a decision fraught with political meaning. Robles was not only going to be stripped of the gold -- he was going to be vanquished, and an American was going to take his place at the top.

For Jason Richardson, there was none of that. It was all about sport and his own dream.

Tears welled up in his eyes.

"Slight perspiration," he said with a laugh as the reporters pressed in even closer.

Jason Richardson was nothing but class.

"My first reaction is that it's disappointing that somebody so great, with such accomplishments, was kind of robbed of the opportunity to really display his athleticism," he said.

"I respect Robles completely. Even when I wasn't running fast, Robles always spoke -- always maintained good rapport -- with me. Under other circumstances, he wouldn't be able to have that medal. What I will say is that I don't know about anybody else's god, but my god is bigger than myself, bigger than this race and, um, I guess I'm the gold medalist."

Later in the evening, at a news conference, he said, "I had to respect the fact that any medal would be a great medal for me. I was completely satisfied with silver," adding a moment later, "Drama or no drama, it is what it is."

He also said, "It has been gratifying to see the hard work I have put in resulting in success," and anyone who knows a John Smith camp knows there is indeed hard work involved.

Richardson said as well, "I have heart. That is bigger and better than anything."

Jeter, for her part, initially appeared stunned to have won -- stunned that the dream she had chased for so long, that had animated all the hard workouts with Smith the taskmaster since she had gotten bronze at the worlds in Berlin in 2009, had finally come true.

"I didn't want to have the same color again," she would say later.

It wasn't, she said, until the camera trained itself on her that she realized, yes, she had done it. The camera finds the winner. That's how she knew -- even before she could find what she was looking for on the scoreboard.

Veronica Campbell-Brown of Jamaica --  the 2007 100 world champion, among many accomplishments -- took second, in 10.97.

Kelly-Ann Baptiste of Trinidad and Tobago got third, in 10.98.

Carmelita Jeter said she ran with no fear. "I ran," she said, "for my life."

Usain Bolt's epic disqualification

DAEGU, South Korea -- Usain Bolt false-started, and Yohan Blake, his Jamaican training partner, won the men's 100-meter world championship title in a race that immediately created a sensational controversy sure to linger to and through the London 2012 Olympic Games. Whether that controversy is good for track and field, a sport that desperately needs stars and on Sunday by rule excused its biggest star from its biggest event -- all that remains to be seen.

"Looking for tears?" Bolt said as he was leaving the stadium. "Not gonna happen. I'm OK."

Blake flew to an easy win in 9.92 seconds just after Bolt false-started. Under a rule that was passed in 2009 and that went into effect in 2010, a regulation that some track and field insiders had warned would inevitably produce a result just like this, one false start now leads to immediate disqualification.

Inevitably came Sunday night in Daegu.

Bolt false-started. He knew it immediately. His face turned into a scream. He ripped his shirt off as a roar of disbelief echoed around the stadium.

He threw his arms up in apparent disgust. His hands over his head, he was led backstage. There he slammed the blue stadium wall.

Justin Gatlin, the American sprinter, had suggested beforehand that the 100 final would be "epic." Turned out he was right -- but what a crazy context.

The show must go on. And, after the shirtless Bolt was led off, it did. But no one in the world thinks Yohan Blake is the world's best sprinter.

Against the six other guys he raced, yes, Yohan Blake was by far the best.

Would he have beaten Usain Bolt?

What, when all is said and done, is the point of a world championships race?

What, when all is said and done, is the point of a rule?

American Walter Dix took second, in 10.08. The first third of the race was the worst, Dix said: "… I kept sitting in the blocks and I couldn't move. That false start was killing us. And hopefully it will change by London. I really didn't think they would kick him out … they have him on every poster."

Kim Collins of St. Kitts and Nevis, the 2003 100 world champion, took third here Sunday, in 10.09. He, too, said the rule ought to be changed: "Not because of [Bolt] but because of what it's doing to the sport."

Then again, it's precisely because of what it was doing to the sport that the rule was changed to one-and-done.

From 2001, track and field worked under a two-strike principle. The first false-start in a particular race was charged to the field. Only if there was a second false-start would that particular athlete be disqualified.

The practical consequence of the two-strike rule was a lot of twitchy gamesmanship.

In 2009, the IAAF, track and field's governing body, had seen enough. It ordered the one-and-done, effective January 2010.

Swimming works on a one-and-done -- and, it must be said, swimmers stay on the blocks.

In the first two days of the 2011 track worlds, though, there have already been three extraordinary false-start disqualifications.

Christine Ohuruogu, the 2007 world champion and 2008 Olympic gold medalist in the 400, was disqualified in Saturday's 400 heats. She sat on the stairs leading to an interview zone for 20 minutes, then said, "I'm broken. You can all see I'm broken. I have nothing else to say. I false-started. I have worked really hard. I came here. I false-started."

Earlier Sunday night, in the semifinals of the men's 100, Dwain Chambers, the world indoor sprint champion, was eliminated when he false-started.

And, now, Bolt.

It must also be said that IAAF officials are appropriately even-handed in their application of the rule. If it can take out Bolt, it can take out anyone.

Now the question: is that a good thing?

Three years ago, at the Olympic Games in Beijing, Bolt ran 9.69, a world record, in the 100.

Two years ago, at the worlds in Berlin, he ran 9.58, a world record staggering in its achievement.

This year, he has been running slower. No one expected a world record. Pretty much everyone, however, expected victory.

Even Bolt, who before the race went through his by-now familiar showman's shtick. He pretended to fly down the lanes like an airplane. He smoothed his hair and scraggly beard to make himself look good for the cameras. When he was introduced, he pointed left and right and shook his head no, as if to say, no way those guys are gonna win, then pointed down the track to suggest it was all him.

He settled into the blocks, crossed himself like he usually does. At that point, Usain Bolt is all business.

This time, though, he jumped the gun.

The biggest event in track and field is the men's 100, and the biggest star is Usain Bolt, and, as Kim Collins said, "The people want to see him -- they want to see him do it," meaning run like he does, and set those records when he can, "and do it again."

One-and-done not only can but, it is surely proven, will take out even Usain Bolt for a twitch. What now, if anything, should track and field do about that?

Oscar Pistorius and the power of will

DAEGU, South Korea -- It took 45 seconds, more or less, for Oscar Pistorius to show the world, again and emphatically, that sport holds no barriers to the power of will. Running on prosthetic devices that he puts on the way able-bodied athletes slip on shoes, Pistorius, the South African whose lower legs were amputated when he was a baby, turned 400 meters at the track and field world championships in 45.39 seconds, third-fastest in his heat, plenty fast to move him into Monday's semifinal.

It's not the case that walls of every sort came hurtling down because Pistorius raced here Sunday.

But it may well be that sport was forever changed.

Swimmer Natalie du Toit, who is also from South Africa, competed in the  2008 Beijing Olympics in the open-water swim; her left leg had been amputated at the knee as a teen-ager after she had been in an accident. Natalia Partyka, a Polish table tennis player, also took part in the Beijing Olympics; she was born without a right hand and forearm.

Even so, track and field remains the most important of the Olympic sports and Pistorius' case has generated publicity and controversy of a far different magnitude than either du Toit's or Partyka's.

Watching him run on his blades is a very different thing than watching du Toit swim or Partyka bat a little plastic ball. Running is, after all, elemental.

To get the okay to run on the blades against able-bodied athletes in the first instance took the okay of sport's top tribunal, the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport.  Along the way, Pistorius became widely known in the press as the "Blade Runner."

Then, well after the legal case had been decided, some sport scientists started arguing that the blades gave Pistorius an unfair advantage against "ordinary" runners. Others said that was nonsense.

Big picture-wise, the matter launched an extensive debate world-wide about the technological boundaries of what's fair and what's not in sport.

Here, all of that was just noise.

Here, Pistorius got the ultimate respect.

To the others in the field -- he was just another guy in the race. He was somebody who might on a good day be a threat, and threats have to be dealt with.

"I know it's not easy, going through all this, and then coming to compete at a major championship," Chris Brown of the Bahamas, who won Pistorius' heat, in 45.29, said. "I wish him all the best, you know. But I came here to prevail."

American LaShawn Merritt, who raced two heats earlier, running a world-leading 44.35, said of Pistorius, "He ran the time to get here. I've had a little time to talk to him. He's a great person. He's dedicated and motivated. A great heart. I wish all the best to him."

Pistorius ran Sunday in Lane 8, all the way on the outside of the track. Like everyone else, he took off at the sound of the gun when, bang, the gun went off again. A false start.

A sense of dread settled over the stadium. But not over Pistorius. "I knew it was somebody else," he said, and it was -- Abdou Razack Rabo Samma of Nigeria, in Lane 5, who was promptly escorted out.

The gun went off again, and in Lane 7 Femi Ogunode of Qatar went out hard. Within 20 meters he was already ahead of Pistorius. But Pistorius did not press.

On Saturday night, Pistorius said, he had looked up Ogunode's best 400 times; Ogunode's best-ever was 45.12 last November and his 2011 best was 47.79 in April.

"Before my races, I research every single guy in the race, to know if he's playing a game or if he thinks he's got false hope," Pistorius said. So if Ogunode wanted to go out early now -- not to worry.

Over in Lane 6 -- there was Tony McQuay, the American, who had run a 44.68 in Eugene in June. Now there was someone to keep up with, Pistorius said, and that was the plan.

Indeed, for a brief moment at the top of the homestretch, Pistorius even held the lead.

Then McQuay started laboring. The thing about racing is you always have to adjust. Just go hard, Pistorius told himself, and you'll be in the semifinal.

It turned out that McQuay had a bad hamstring. He finished sixth.

Pistorius finished behind only Brown and Martyn Rooney of Great Britain, who crossed in a season-best 45.30.

"It's one thing getting here," Pistorius said after the race. "It's another thing being consistent here. I ran my second-fastest time," 32-hundredths off the 45.07 last month in Italy that got him here in the first instance, "and I'm happy with that."

That 45.07 was a nearly perfect effort, and at the world championships, you pretty much have to run in the 44s to be in the final eight. So it's hugely unlikely Pistorius makes the final.

No matter. Pistorius' first-round run in the 2011 track and field world championships was, by any measure, an extraordinary success. He was asked if he feels like a trailblazer and modestly said, no. "I don't really feel like a pioneer," he said.

That's not so. Here Sunday, Oscar Pistorius made history. He ran with the guys, and he was just one of them.

Usain Bolt awaits

DAEGU, South Korea -- American Walter Dix, running in sunglasses at night, was so in command and control that he could look left and right as he cruised down Lane 2 to a strong and easy victory Saturday night in his heat of the men's 100-meter dash. He said afterward that he had come to Daegu "to win three gold medals," in the 100, the 200 and the relays. In his heat, another American, Justin Gatlin shook off freezer burn around his ankles to earn an automatic qualifier spot. He declared afterward that Sunday night's 100 final would "probably be one of the most epic world championship we have ever seen."

Confidence is of course a good thing when you have to run against Usain Bolt.

The issue is whether confidence, or anything, matters.

The 2011 version of Bolt is not 2009 or, for that matter, 2008. Even so, the Bolt who was on display Saturday night looked lethal enough. He ran the night's fastest time, 10.10 seconds, and did so though he jogged the final 50 meters.

The men's 100 heats capped a thoroughly full first day here at the world track championships that also saw Americans Ashton Eaton and Trey Hardee standing 1-2 halfway through the decathlon, Eaton with 4446 points, Hardee with 4393.

In other performances:

-- All four American women moved through to the next rounds of the 400, led by  Sanya Richards-Ross, in 51.37, and Allyson Felix, in 51.45.

"I feel really healthy, the best I've felt in a long time," Richards-Ross, the defending world champion, said.

"I felt controlled," Felix said of the first race in her 200/400 double. "I wanted to establish a fast 150, then go from there. It was a little bit quicker than what I hoped for but I wanted to make it as easy as possible. I feel good, and excited to get started."

-- Britain's Christine Ohuruogu, the 2008 Beijing gold medalist and 2007 world champion in the 400, false-started and was disqualified. She sat on the stairs leading down into the alley called the "mixed zone," where athletes meet the press, for nearly 20 minutes. She just sat there, in disbelief.

When she came through the zone, she said, "I'm broken. You can all see I'm broken. I have nothing else to say. I false-started. I have worked really hard. I came here. I false started."

-- Incredibly, Kenyan women swept the medals, six-for-six, in the marathon and 10,000 meters.

Edna Kiplagat, who had won the New York marathon last fall, won here in 2:28.43. Priscah Jeptoo took second, Sharon Cherop third.

No nation had ever swept the medals at a worlds or Olympics.

Prior to the Kenyan finish in that marathon, none had even managed a 1-2 finish.

Then came the 10k.

The Kenyans didn't just go 1-2-3.

They went 1-2-3-4:

Vivian Cheruiyot won in 30:48.98, a personal best, followed by Sally Kipyego, then by defending champion Linet Masai. Priscah Cherono finished fourth. Ethiopia's Meselech Melkamu, the African record-holder, took fifth.

All of that, and then came the men's 100 heats.

Jamaican Asafa Powell is not here, purportedly with a groin injury. American Tyson Gay is hurt. Further, American Mike Rodgers and Jamaican Steve Mullings are out because of doping-related issues. The field isn't what it could be.

"Epic" remains to be seen.

Dix, it must be said, looked solid, in 10.25. He said, "I wanted to come out of the blocks well so I could finish easily. That was a great race for me," and it was.

Bolt, it must also be said, remains Bolt.

Dix raced in Heat 2, Bolt in 6.

Before Bolt lined up in Lane 4, he pretended to brush back his hair in an imaginary mirror, to make himself prettier for the cameras. He shot both index fingers as if they were guns. He smoothed his hair back again.

He settled his silver shoes into the blocks, his sponsor logo trimmed in gold. The gun went off, he exploded out and, essentially, the race was over.

Dwain Chambers, over in Lane 8, who came in second in that heat, in 10.28, was asked later if he thought Bolt might be vulnerable.

He said, "I don't think so."

USOC's smart play: staying out of 2020

DAEGU, South Korea -- The president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, said here Friday, "Obviously we would love to have had a bid emanating from the United States for 2020," and, sure, no doubt about that. At the same time, the United States Olympic Committee unequivocally did the right thing by announcing earlier this week it would not be bidding. An American bid could not have won. If no one else is willing to be so blunt in saying so -- it says so here. Not now, no way, no how. Moreover, it's not clear when. Maybe 2022. Or maybe not. It's too soon to know.

You can believe there were a variety of interests urging the Americans to jump in to the 2020 campaign. Larry Probst, the USOC chairman, and Scott Blackmun, the USOC chief executive, deserve credit for having resolve enough to just say no. That's leadership.

Right now the IOC, and for that matter international sport, is in the midst of what the South Koreans, prompted by the first-rate American strategist Terrence Burns, cleverly termed the "new horizons" era. That slogan encapsulated Pyeongchang's winning bid for the 2018 Winter Games. That same sort of expansionist thinking won Sochi the 2014 Winter Games and Rio de Janeiro the 2016 Summer Games -- and, as well, brought Russia and Qatar the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

Friday brought yet another "new horizons" twist -- one that makes Probst and Blackmun look even smarter.

After meeting all afternoon here at the Inter Burgo hotel behind closed doors, the IOC's policy-making executive board gave Doha the green light to launch an autumn bid for the 2020 Games, when it would be cooler in Qatar.

Later Friday, the Qatar Olympic Committee announced they were in the race. The formal entry deadline is Sept. 1.

Istanbul, Madrid, Tokyo and Rome have announced they're in, too.

There's no question, of course, that the United States has the facilities and resources to stage an Olympic Games. As Seb Coe, the leader of the London 2012 bid and now its organizing committee, has famously put it, that's the "how." What's now missing is the "why" -- the story of why the IOC would vote to send the Games back to the United States.

Until that "why" comes along, there's an incredibly strong argument to be made that it's best for the United States to remain a loyal, faithful and devoted Olympic partner but graciously permit others to shoulder the burden of staging the Games.  It currently costs $100 million, or more, to bid successfully, and in the United States, where all that money has to be privately raised, there has to be a return on that investment.

See New York 2012 and Chicago 2016.

Let's be perfectly clear. At least 20 years will have gone by from the last time the United States had the privilege of staging the Games until the next time, whenever that is; the last time was of course in Salt Lake City, in 2002. But it's not that the USOC, and the United States of America, haven't sought the Games. To the contrary.

Indeed, the next time a bid committee goes to the White House to ask the president of the United States for his (or her) personal involvement in the campaign -- again, it gets back to return on investment.

It is indisputably true that the IOC and USOC find themselves locked in a complex dispute over revenue-sharing over broadcasting and marketing shares. Solving that is a prerequisite for the launch of any American bid. It wasn't going to be solved by Sept. 1, and that's why the USOC was for sure out for 2020.

The two sides are currently negotiating; eventually, the matter will be solved. It's a contract dispute. Such disputes inevitably get solved.

That just sets the stage, though, for the real work.

Far too many people seem to have a grossly unrealistic expectation about the bid process, particularly in the United States, fueled perhaps by Atlanta's win for the 1996 Games.

That win, though, happened at a very different time in both American and Olympic history, when the United States was riding the boom of the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles. Those days are long gone.

What Probst and Blackmun understand is that the USOC now is in the relationship business.

That is the real work.

The two most intriguing U.S.-centric bid-related news bits this week were not so much that the USOC opted out of 2020 -- the signals had been there for a long while -- but that Probst and Blackmun last week traveled to Peru, Brazil, Argentina and Chile, and that here this week Bob Hersh, the American delegate, was not only re-elected to one of the four IAAF vice-presidential positions but received the most votes among all the candidates.

First, the South American swing:

It is vital that the USOC play a key role in the western hemisphere. If you can't help lead in your own neighborhood, how can you lead anywhere else?

It's why Probst, in a statement released by the USOC, said it had placed a "high priority on being a trusted partner" in the Americas. Blackmun -- who, by the way, is also due into Daegu next week -- called the South American trip an "opportunity to learn from some of the smartest people in the Olympic movement and continue to build genuine relationships."

Hersh, meanwhile, offers a solid example of how Americans ought to -- no, must -- go about re-building their international relations effort.

Hersh has been active in track and field circles throughout his life. He was manager of his high school (Midwood High, Brooklyn) and college (Columbia) track teams; after law school (Harvard), he became an official at track meets; then he got involved with the body that pre-dated USA Track & Field. For chronological purposes, that takes us to the 1970s. He was elected to his first IAAF post, a technical position, in 1984.

That was 27 years ago.

Hersh has steadily worked his way up since, saying in an interview Friday, a couple days after receiving 175 votes for vice-president, "Work is the key word," adding a moment later, "The way you progress in most organizations is by doing work that is recognized. And it is work. No question about it. A lot of work. I am pleased, as anyone would be, when things come of it."

Dale Neuberger is a key figure in swimming. Svein Romstad is secretary-general of the luge federation. Max Cobb is a rising figure in biathlon.

Here, in addition to Hersh, three other Americans were also elected to IAAF posts, including David Katz, who led the voting to remain on the federation's technical committee in balloting that saw 12 elected from a field of 28.

The United States needs more such worker bees, and in considerably more federations. That's how networks get built. Over time, such networks build influence.

Again, give Probst and Blackmun credit. Rather than being rushed into a decision for 2020, they took their time.

"We respect and we understand the position of the United States Olympic Committee," Rogge also said here Friday, "and we hope there will be good bids in the future beyond 2020."

There's no rush.

Allyson Felix's audacious 200/400 challenge

DAEGU, South Korea -- Maybe Allyson Felix's audacious challenge yields three gold medals here at the track and field world championships. Or, given the odds and the competition, maybe not.

Felix, long one of the world's premier 200-meter sprinters, has opted here into the 400 as well. She is scheduled, too, to run in the relays.

Given everything else surrounding the U.S. track and field program -- the injuries, the doping-related issues, the general tumult -- it's hardly a stretch to say that the spotlight in advance of these championships, which get underway Saturday, finds itself trained directly on Allyson Felix.

On top of which, it has been drizzling here pretty much non-stop for days. Someone has to be a bright spot, right?

"I'm excited to do something different," she said Thursday morning, reporters pressed in close to hear every word she said.

Again, the chances of Felix succeeding at this task are not particularly robust, and that is not -- repeat, not -- a reflection on her.

The 200 and the 400 are two very different races.

The 200 is 22 seconds of hugely technical power and pain. There's the curve and then there's the straightaway.

The 400, of course, is a full lap around the track. As any high school coach could tell you, virtually anyone can run 300 meters. It's that last 100 that's the killer.

You train differently for the two races.

Yet -- every once in a while there emerges a special talent who can do both at the elite level. Three people have done the 200-400 double:

Michael Johnson did it, twice, once at the world championships in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1995, and then again at the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996. Marie-Jose Perec also did it in Atlanta. Valerie Brisco-Hooks did it at the Los Angeles Games in 1984.

Allyson Felix can. There's no question she can. She has proven over the course of the IAAF Diamond League circuit that she is world-class in both events.

What Allyson Felix and her coach, Bobby Kersee, want to find out this year -- the year before the Olympics -- is how best to get her ready for both come next July in London.

That's what this is about here in Daegu.

So while they would gladly take three golds in Korea, each said, separately, that what they really want is to find out where she is now and how to get better over the next year.

Kersee, calling it the ultimate challenge," said he has taken to referring to Felix as "Seabiscuit." Like the horse. "I like the way she races," he said.

A bonus: Reuters reported here Thursday that Brisco (as she is now known) will be here in Daegu, to "walk Allyson through what she did."

It's hardly a lock that Felix will win even the 200, her specialty over the years. Veronica Campbell-Brown of Jamaica, the Olympic gold medalist in the 200 in Beijing, awaits. Another American, Shalonda Solomon, has run the fastest time in the 200 this year, 22.15.

Beyond which, the 400 comes first -- the heats get underway Saturday. Sanya Richards-Ross of the United States is the defending champion in the event; Amantle Montsho of Botswana, though 1-12 all-time against Felix, has dominated the Diamond League with five straight victories.

"I know it going to be tough," Felix said.

"To me, when you go to a race your goal is to win. So when you don't win, it's a disappointment -- you're not living up to your goals. For me it's a learning experience. I'm going to take away whatever happens here into next year, and learn from it. I'm just going to try to grow from it.

"Of course," she said, "I'm in it to win it. But I'll be okay if it doesn't end up that way."