It would seem that Don Logan sees punishing Marion Jones as the cure for all that ails America.

He said, “If you have athletic talent or money or fame, the law is applied much differently than if you are slow or poor or an average American trying to get by.” He said this to George Bush, for whom the law has definitely been a friend, not a foe.

He’s angry at Jones because she dared to question the testing regime. But she might have been right. This isn’t about Jones. It’s about legitimacy. Maybe performance enhancement will become part of the games in the future.

Does Marion Jones deserve a break? George W. Bush has to decide this in the next few months. Jones owes six months hard time. She wants out. But what is she asking for? She doesn’t want a pardon which removes liabilities from a conviction. She wants a commutation, which only shortens or eliminates the sentence. But how do you actually play that out?

Do you say, “I did steroids for years, lied about it to the feds and then tried to make money forging checks?” At some point even the person asking just says — you know what? Never mind. To be continued.

Trevor Graham, the guy who singlehandedly started the whole BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative) brouhaha by anonymously sending a vial of the “clear” to the United States Anti-Doping Agency, has been banned for life by the same agency. Not even the cops like this tattletale.

The former coach of athletes such as Marion Jones (pictured) Justin Gatlin and Tim Montgomery is awaiting sentencing on a charge of, yes, you guessed it, lying to federal investigators. What is the moral of the steroid saga and of dealing with Feds? Even if they don’t get you for a crime, if they can prove you lied about anything, about whether you’ve had pizza before or, well, if you knew that guy who shot you full of home run juice, you’re doing jail time.

But, Mr. Graham has a special seat of honor in the dining room of Crazy Town. Neither he nor anyone else has been able to explain just why he decided to send the cops a sample of very effective steroids of which they knew nothing.

South Africa’s double amputee athlete Oscar Pistorius failed to record the minimum qualifying time for the 400 metres. He timed a season’s best of 46.25 seconds but it was still outside the standard qualifying time of 45.55 seconds. However he said he was still hoping to be selected for his country’s 4×400 metre relay squad for the Olympics.

Pistorius successfully appealed against to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) for his right to compete with able-bodied athletes. The IAAF barred him from doing so at the beginning of 2008.

The athlete had both legs amputated below the knee when he was 11 months old.

Doping-tainted sprinter Katerina Thanou has been included in Greece’s provisional team list for the Beijing Olympics. But the list is provisional and does not guarantee the female-athlete participation at the Olympics.

Thanou and her compatriot Kostas Kenteris both missed drugs tests on the eve of the Athens Olympics in 2004. It was the third time they had missed tests, resulting in a two-year suspension. Both of them still face criminal charges of perjury and falsifying evidence in Greece after claiming they had been injured in a motorcycle crash.

Thanou won silver behind Marion Jones at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and is fighting to be awarded the gold, following Jones’ disclosure last year that she had been taking the banned steroid THG at the time… Funny, isn´t it?

Women 100 Meter Hurdles
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World: W 12.21 8/20/1988 Yordanka Donkova, BUL
American: A 12.33 7/23/2000 Gail Devers, Nike
OT: T 12.33 7/23/2000 Gail Devers, Nike
Hayward: S 12.45 2003 Brigitte Foster-Hylton, Jamaica
Name Year Team Finals Wind
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Finals
1 Lolo Jones Asics 12.29 3.8
2 Damu Cherry Nike 12.58 3.8
3 Dawn Harper unattached 12.62 3.8 12.612
4 Nichole Denby adidas 12.62 3.8 12.619
5 Candice Davis unattached 12.66 3.8
6 Virginia Powell Nike 12.74 3.8
7 Joanna Hayes Nike 12.96 3.8
— Kellie Wells Nike DNS 3.8

Lolo Jones, Olympic Qualifier, Winner

“It went good and a lot better then I thought because after I had a PR in the semifinals, it was hard to come back down. My legs felt a little tired and I wondered if I would have enough energy in the tank to get faster.”

“This just shows not to give up because four years ago I didn’t event make the final and now I’m the U.S.A. Outdoor Champion. Really, I never won anything growing up and I finally had victory at just the right time.”

“I got out really good and then normally it’s easy to have a mental lapse, but this time I was like, I’m going for it and not stopping like a train.”

“I was very nervous when I got out here today because normally when I have a tail wind I start hitting hurdles, but my coach had to calm me down. He just told me that I couldn’t control the wind and not to let this determine what was going to happen in this race.”

Track star Tyson Gay pulled up lame with a mild calf strain during his 200 race - one in which he is the Olympic favorite. While he will not compete in the 200 in Beijing (because the rules state that only the top three competitors from Trials get to go) - he will still run the 100 and the 4×100 relay… will he be 100%?

“I’ll be 100 percent for the 100 and 400 relay,” Gay declared in an NBC interview.

There’s nothing like a funny sexual name to get you all giggly. But sometimes a rather pedestrian name like Gay is not sophomoric by itself–so we have software glitches to help with that. Enter Tyson Homosexual, who yesterday clocked the world’s fastest time in the 100m with a wind-aided 9.68. His performance spread through the internets like wildfire. Check the coverage on Google News:

Apparently all of the internet searches haven’t caught on yet. As of this writing, searching Google Images for Tyson Homosexual brings up pictures of Mike Tyson, as well as a few photos you probably shouldn’t check at work.

There is no better time for sports viewing. Olympic Trials track and field followed by swimming. And world records are being shattered. Here is sprinting star Tyson Gay breaking the 9.70 mark with an unbelievably smooth 9.68. It is wind-aided (4.1m) but the results are still phenomenal:

Dayron Robles of Cuba set a world record of 12.87 seconds in the 110-meter hurdles Thursday. Robles broke the mark previously held by China’s star Liu Xiang who previously ran a 12.88. The match up of Robles and Xiang is one of the most anticipated in Beijing.

More interesting: in a sport that measures hundredths of a second, you wonder why Robles runs in pedestrian eye glasses. Seems bizarre to me.

Robles has clearly gained top form as Liu tries to restore his health. On Thursday, Robles shaved five-hundredths of a second — a considerable amount — from his previous best, 12.92 seconds, run last September.

In the clouded world of track and field, where doping has been rampant, Robles is sure to face some skepticism about his performance. He has not failed a drug test.

Thursday’s performance by Robles, who is 6 feet 3 ½ inches, was the second stunning record effort in two weeks. Usain Bolt of Jamaica ran 9.72 seconds to set the world record in the 100 meters at the Reebok Grand Prix meet. - NY Times