Montgomery Faces Challenges on and Off Track

Sprinter Tim Montgomery’s concerns extend beyond getting a good start in the 100-meter dash today at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Ore.

Montgomery will appear Monday in San Francisco at a hearing by the Court of Arbitration for Sport to defend himself against doping charges made by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency stemming from the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative scandal. If he’s unconvincing, he could be banned from the sport for life.

“I think he’s ready for the whole thing to be done,” Howard Jacobs of Los Angeles, one of Montgomery’s attorneys, said Friday. “I think the case against him is very weak, and I’ve said that from the beginning.”

Jacobs said the hearing in front of a three-man panel might last all week and that a decision is likely within 45 to 60 days. That keeps Montgomery in limbo, “but he’s been operating under that uncertainty for a while,” Jacobs said.

Montgomery, who set the world record of 9.78 seconds in 2002, has run the 100 once this season, finishing fourth in 10.14 seconds in a race in Martinique. He’s scheduled to run today against Athens Olympic gold medalist Justin Gatlin, Jamaica’s Asafa Powell, who ran a world-leading 9.84 last month; 2003 world champion Kim Collins of St. Kitts, and Athens 200-meter gold medalist Shawn Crawford.

Montgomery’s partner, Marion Jones, withdrew from the women’s 100, but the meet still has remarkable depth in every event.

Among the notable events is a two-mile race featuring Alan Webb and Dathan Ritzenhein in their first meeting on the track after several cross-country races. Women’s marathon world-record holder Paula Radcliffe of Britain will run the 1,500, and the women’s 400 will include Athens champion Tonique Williams-Darling of the Bahamas and silver medalist Ana Guevara of Mexico.

Men’s 400-meter hurdles gold medalist Felix Sanchez of the Dominican Republic will race silver medalist Danny McFarlane of Jamaica, and Athens 110-meter hurdles champion Lu Xiang of China will make his first U.S. appearance in a field that includes four-time world champion Allen Johnson.

Water World

Advertisements in sports are about to hit the water.

Despite opposition from the U.S., the international aquatics federation (FINA) has decided swimmers must wear bibs that bear FINA sponsors’ names while parading onto the pool deck and participating in medal ceremonies.

Bibs appeared at last year’s short-course world championships at Indianapolis and were added to FINA’s rule book before this year’s world championships at Montreal.

“We did not feel it appropriate for athletes to be used as billboards,” said Chuck Wielgus, executive director of USA Swimming. “We expressed our opposition to FINA and our protests have been heard but had no impact.

“Not to defend FINA, but in track you see logos, skiers wear them, and athletes in multiple sports have corporate logos ... [but] we have always protected the sanctity and purity of athletes’ uniforms. FINA has said they see this as an opportunity to generate revenues and help athletes, primarily from developing countries. They have effectively seized the moral high ground.”

Hogwash, said Evan Morganstein of Premier Management Group, which represents 28 swimmers. “Show me that they’re broke and I’ll tell you this is a great idea,” he said of FINA. “This is nothing more than taking advantage of athletes from bigger countries.”

Wielgus said swim caps, which bear manufacturers’ names and flags of the athletes’ homelands, would probably have ads within a year. Wielgus added that the U.S. was the only country to vote against the bibs.

“Now we’re being portrayed as ugly Americans,” he said.

Here and There

Dominique Moceanu of the “Magnificent Seven” 1996 U.S. Olympic gymnastics team has launched a comeback after a five-year retirement. Moceanu, 23, has been coaching in Cleveland and plans to compete next month at the U.S. Classic in Virginia Beach, Va., a qualifying event for the U.S. championships in Indianapolis in August.