6/28/08

EUGENE, Ore.--If the U.S. Olympic track team for the Beijing Games is composed of athletes as flat-out fast as Marshevet Hooker, as natural and unspoiled as 16-year-old Laura Roesler and as upstandingly honest as Allyson Felix and Lauryn Williams, maybe there's hope for a sport that has seemed intent on destroying itself through a never-ending series of drug scandals.

Hooker, Felix and Williams are sprinters, all with NCAA or world or Olympic medals in their trophy cases. They won the crowd's admiration Friday because they're so powerful and accomplished -- and because they're rebuilding the credibility the sport lost the last decade while drug cheats and chemistry dominated the conversation.