A Reprieve for Gatlin, but Setback for Jones

Olympic gold medalist Justin Gatlin was out of the men’s 100-meter dash, then he was in.

Marion Jones was out of the women’s 100 on Friday and stayed out, perhaps never to regain the form that brought her five medals at the Sydney Olympics. Her injury-induced withdrawal from her preliminary heat came a few hours after the exit of her partner, former 100-meter world-record holder Tim Montgomery, who’s preoccupied with doping accusations and the possibility that he will be banned from the sport.

On a chilly but emotionally heated night at the U.S. track and field championships at the Home Depot Center, Gatlin was disqualified for false-starting in his preliminary heat but was reinstated based on a protest filed by his agent, Renaldo Nehemiah. Ed Gorman, the head referee, determined that the runner in the adjacent lane, Mark Jelks, moved before the start and advanced Gatlin to today’s semifinals.

“The referee decided to advance him because he was looking at all the facts -- movement, fair competition and a half-dozen other reasons,” said John Chaplin, chairman of the men’s track and field committee for USA Track and Field.

The semifinals will be run in three heats instead of the usual two. The top two in each heat and the next three fastest runners will advance to today’s final. The top three will go to the world championships in Helsinki, Finland, in August.

Fear that he’d miss the 100 at Helsinki left Gatlin stunned and disconsolate.

“It was like his whole world had come crumbling down,” Nehemiah said.

“His battle with [world-record holder] Asafa Powell is important not only for him, but for the sport. It would have been devastating, for sure.”

Gatlin was grateful for the reprieve, which drew applause from the announced crowd of 5,710.

“I’m happy that the head referee gave me the opportunity to compete for the world championship,” he said.

Bernard Williams, the Olympic 200-meter silver medalist, was disqualified after false-starting in his 100-meter heat. He didn’t get a reprieve, but he got sympathy.

“The starter, he’s not any good. They need to change it,” Maurice Greene said of Thomas Hott, a veteran official from Arkansas who was the starter in all five men’s heats. “For one, he’s holding up for like a thousand years. He’s like no other starter in the world. At every championship meet, you’ve got a lot of people who are nervous. I can’t recall that many false starts.”

Shawn Crawford, who led all qualifiers with a time of 10.10 seconds -- 0.02 of a second faster than Greene -- agreed that Hott was “holding runners a little long.... I felt like he was holding us a little.”

Jones, who won two world titles and the 2000 Olympic gold medal in the 100, took one start out of the blocks before the third heat of the women’s 100 preliminaries. She returned to the start line, gathered her belongings and left without comment.

Charles Wells, who represents Jones and Montgomery, said Jones felt a recurrence of a hip flexor injury she sustained two weeks ago and would also pull out of the 200, keeping her out of the world championships. She missed the 2003 world championships after giving birth to a son fathered by Montgomery.

“It was something that was very minor,” Wells said. “She worked out and thought she was ready to go. She got to the track and it started bothering her, and she decided not to risk it.”

Jones is under investigation by U.S. doping authorities but has never tested positive for a performance-enhancing substance. Montgomery, who also has never tested positive, is fighting a career ban proposed by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency in connection with the BALCO steroid scandal. He appealed the ban during a hearing earlier this month in front of the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

“Considering everything that’s going on, he just can’t concentrate on track and field,” Wells said.

Jones left the Athens Olympics with no medals after a botched baton exchange in the 400-meter relay and a fifth-place finish in the long jump. She hasn’t fared well this season, running the 400 in a pedestrian 53.03 at the Mt. San Antonio College Relays in April and posting a season best in the 100 of 11.28, well off her career-best 10.65.

“I don’t think she should have scratched. I think she should have run,” said Muna Lee, the fourth-fastest qualifier.

Said Shalonda Solomon, a former standout at Long Beach Poly: “I was on my starts and I looked around and the officials were, ‘Marion’s gone. Marion’s gone,’ she’s not going to run. I said, ‘Oh, OK.’ That’s one less person I have to worry about.”