Allyson felix won't race past reality. After Marion Jones, who sits in jail because she lied about her steroid use, Felix knows that track can't crown a true queen. We'll always have to wonder if she's clean. "To be questioned is just frustrating," says Felix, 22, who has never failed a drug test. Neither had Jones. "But I understand." Once again, the U.S. sprinters will have a cloud trailing them to the Olympics. Doping has ripped the sport like a track spike tearing a tendon, and it's up to athletes like Felix, the defending world champ in the 200 m, to heal it. She's the ideal savior-young and telegenic, with a smile as wide as a hurdle. She's participating in a pilot program, Project Believe, in which athletes undergo extensive blood and urine analyses that go beyond the World Anti-Doping Agency's guidelines. If Felix is doping, you might just as well put down the starting guns for good.
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