Track and Field
Notebook: Coach says team will be clean

By Times staff and news services

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The men's coach for the U.S. Olympic track-and-field team says no squad will be more drug-free than the Americans in the Athens Games.

"There's no doubt in my mind there's a cloud" over the sport, George Williams said, "but the true fact is we're going to take the best team, the cleanest team that's going to be in the Olympics because of the cloud. What we hope is that the whole Olympics is as clean as we are."

Williams and U.S. women's coach Sue Humphrey held a sometimes contentious news conference yesterday during the U.S. track-and-field trials.

Williams referred to the steroid situation as "this small problem."

Both coaches thought coverage of the meet has focused too much on the steroid scandal.

"I feel very sad and disappointed that everybody thinks what maybe six or eight athletes have done, or allegedly done, clouds the whole Olympic trials," Humphrey said. "We have over 1,000 athletes out here and yet the media has chosen to focus on a very few and what they've allegedly done or supposedly done."

Hill in final

U.S. Olympic track-and-field trials Sacramento, Calif. Today's finals: Men's pole vault, women's triple jump, women's javelin, men's long jump, women's and men's 400-meter hurdles; men's 100 meters. Tomorrow's finals: Men's hammer, women's and men's 800, women's high jump, women's discus, women's 5,000.

Aretha Hill, trying to make her second Olympic team, didn't have to try very hard yesterday as she took one throw and easily advanced to the discus final tomorrow night.

Her first throw of 205 feet, 1 inch surpassed the automatic qualifying standard to get into the finals — 196-10 — and so she decided to throw no more.

Hill ended up leading the qualifying, with Kris Kuehl (197-1) a distant second.

Suzy Powell, one of the favorites with Hill, Kuehl and Seilala Sua, struggled in the qualifying, throwing just 183-11, but still advanced.

Hill, 27, who won last year's national title, achieved a career-best of 215-9 in April to move into third on the all-time U.S. list.

Hill, from Renton High School and the University of Washington, lives in Opelika, Ala.

Nelson takes shot put

Olympic silver medalist Adam Nelson won the shot put at 71 feet and was joined on the U.S. squad by Reese Hoffa and John Godina. Godina will be competing in his third Olympics — he won silver in 1996 and bronze in 2000.

Shelia Burrell won the heptathlon. Joining her on the U.S. team will be Tiffany Lott-Hogan, who finished second, and Michelle Perry.

Tim Montgomery advanced to the semifinals of the men's 100 by finishing fourth in his heat in 10.16 seconds.

The fastest time was 10.00 by Shawn Crawford, followed by John Capel in 10.01 and reigning Olympic champion Maurice Greene (10.06).

Note

• Three former Washington State athletes failed to advance to the next round of competition in their events. Ellannee Richardson just missed advancing to the women's 400 hurdles finals. She had the ninth-fastest time in the semifinals (56.27). Andrea Thornton was 20th in the women's discus at 169-9. Anthony Buchanan (10.44) was 27th of 32 competitors in the men's 100.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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