By Gene Cherry
HELSINKI, Aug 10 Reuters - USA Track & Field chief executive Craig Masback said today the federation had found no evidence of physical intimidation by older members of the American team.
As of last night we did not uncover anything that led us to believe that there was anything involving physical intimidation,'' Masback told reporters. Several US coaches told Reuters they had been informed of incidents involving older sprinters intimidating young athletes as part of their initiation into international athletics. Masback confirmed that 200 metres sprinters Wallace Spearmon and Tyson Gay had moved out of the village this week. However, Spearmon told reporters he had always planned to leave the village before the 200 heats starting on Tuesday. Earlier world 200 metres champion John Capel said younger members of the team had over-reacted to what he described as a little fun’’.
They took it as we were picking on them. A lot of them are still big babies,'' Capel said. We were just having a little fun. The older guys pick on the little guys. The same thing goes on in every other sport.’’
Capel said nothing physical had taken place.
No, no. Although we wanted to we didn't because it's a part of an initiation,'' he said. We went out to eat one day and we told all the younger guys they have to go get us sodas and some of them took it that we were trying to bully them and they wanted to call their moms or whatever.
They went and told the little girls on the team and they start making a big speech about it. They got their mom syndrome and all that. They made it out bigger than what it was.'' Capel said Olympic and world 100 champion Justin Gatlin had received a bye because he is the Olympic champion’’.
Masback said the federation was taking the reports very seriously''. There seemed to be some indication that there had been an incident of some sort,’’ he said. We still don't know when it happened. We think it may have been before the world championships started. We are treating this very seriously and will continue to do so until we know exactly what happened. We’ll continue to investigate as long as it’s appropriate once we figure out what’s going on.’’
Unfortunitly, this kind of stuff goes on at every jock university/club etc. However, the decision to have an initiation during the WCs seems to be a little more stupid than usual. I’m glad Britain don’t feel the need to reduce thier chances even further by participating in this stuff. Perhaps they did over react but John Capel scares the tofu out of me, i’m sure anyone would feel intimidated by him!
I wonder if this happened because the veterans felt that the young ones got to much publicity and money (and behaved accordingly) without even having done anything yet?
John capel is not big at all. Seen him lots of time in fla. I would serve him up if i had to. I wish i was in there place. Me and mo green would be two rumbling mofo’s
TV is playing tricks on my eyes again + I’m obviously just a wimp. Next time you see John set him straight! 
This happens because the vets get away with it. This kind of stuff has gone on for awhile. It has no place and shouldn’t be tolerated- this is the World Champs, not a frat house or a jail-but, clearly, from the “investigation”, it will be tolerated.
In football the Kansas City Chiefs weren’t impressed with the above outlined bad attitude and sent the same guy packing.
We’ll see later on today how Capel feels when Gay & Spearmon “initiate” him off the podium.
I hope so!
Terrible - I believe it’s pressure enough on the younger guys competing at world championships for the first time. You don’t need no old past-his-peak-idiot pick on you.
Agree! The schmuck has proven the validity of the complaints by his own mouth. The 200m individual is one thing, but the trouble (and the reason for the shit) is the 4x100m relay. We’ll see.
You were sayin… 
I think it was all fun and games at the end of the day…I agree…not the place nor time for it…but heh…have to get your kicks and laughs somewhere…especially with all the rain and bad weather! Like being cooped up in a cell!
Maybe if Gay didn’t try to win every round…doesn’t make any sense to me. Why run 19.99 in round1? I don’t get it…looks like he’s got Asafa syndrome.
It might be easier to accept if this guy wasn’t known as a problem outside track as well. They sure didn’t have fond memories of this guy in Kansas City.
Lets remember that he ran 19.99 with a +4 wind behind him. Also that run was 2 DAYS before the final. If you can’t recover after 2 days (which is highly unlikely) you’re in trouble anyway! He tightened up and panicked. Its as simple as that. No maths…no conspiracy theories. Just pressure on the major stage.
He had the top time in the semis too, 1 day before the finals. What Gatlin did was better, running a high 20 on day 1, he saved himself well.
You may say that…but as we all know placings are important for lane draws…He needed to be in a good spot and put effort in the semi to ensure he wasn’t stuck in lane 2 or some other dud lane in a final. I don’t think Gatlin had any sort of Master Plan. Like he said in his BBC post race interview " I was a champion running scared". That summed it up beautifully.
Keep the conspiracy theories where they belong- the 4x100 relay!
Ha ha ha…Well thats another story Charlie! I feel sorry for Mardy! He’ll be the scape goat in that disaster! When I saw who was in the starting line up I knew it was going to be a disaster in the making…
Was Greene actually in that race and no Gatlin? That’s what they had posted on the IAAF website but I was wondering why the Gatt wasn’t in.
And lane 2s an awesome lane for the 200, lane 1, 7 or 8 is a dud lane. And honestly Gatlin would have made the finals with a middle lane no matter what lane he ran in, in the semis.
This business of leting everyone run and keeping the best fresh for the final has two flaws:
First; you might not be there! (isn’t this the third time in the last 10 yrs or so?)
Second; when you have almost no practice sessions, the heats allow you to refine passes- but only if the team stays with the same personnel and in the same order!
Very true…infact again on the BBC coverage of the 4*100, Justin was in the commentary box with the BBC team…they asked him the obvious questions like what went wrong etc…He actually said that the ‘Heats’ Team was: Scales to Scott to Gay to Green, then in the final the team was going to be Scott to Green to Gay to Gatlin. He agreed that this was the flaw as the team shouldn’t be mixed up too much. MJ stepped in and said that the team selectors got this all wrong. What they should have done was run the team that would have run in the final minus a different person on anchor leg. So there for making Scott run first leg (as he would be running that in the final) and also keeping Gay on 3rd as that again would be his leg. Actually made some constructive remarks! A costly mistake by the Yanks.
I hope our Brit boys can do something in the Final. What MLF was doing on the anchor leg I don’t know. If you’re not 100% why are you risking it and the chances of sucess if the leg doesn’t hold out!?? He looked out of sorts today! Brown striding past him and he looked easy! MLF wasn’t slowing down either.