The Jeremy Wariner-led U.S. medal sweep at the Athens Olympics heralded a new era for American sprinters. Simon Bruty/SI

CARSON, Calif. -- When Michael Johnson won the first of his two 400-meter Olympic gold medals at the 1996 Atlanta Games, the silver medalist was an Englishman named Roger Black. No offense to Black, who was a smart, handsome guy and a go-to athlete in the sound-bite department, but he walked away with an Olympic silver medal by running a relatively pedestrian 44.66 seconds. File that time away before we move on. Got it? OK. He may have been English, but with that silver, Black originated the role of mediocre also-ran other U.S. runners would fill during the MJ era.

Understand now: It wasn't as if the U.S. utterly bottomed out in the quarter-mile. Johnson was best in history by a wide margin and occasionally during his reign, he would drag a countryman into the medals: Tyree Washington for a world championship bronze in '97 or Alvin Harrison for an Olympic silver in 2000. But by the time Johnson retired after Sydney, the depth of the event had becoming embarrassingly poor, especially in comparison with the sprinters Johnson faced when he started in the early '90s.

"When I was first running the 400, there were a lot of talented guys still around,'' Johnson said yesterday at the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif. "You had [one-time world record holder] Butch Reynolds, Steve Lewis, Danny Everett, Quincy Watts, Andrew Valmon.''

MJ is right. A solid generation of 400-meter runners helped the U.S. win five of the six Olympic medals in '88 and '92. By 2001, Americans were off the medal stand altogether at the worlds in Edmonton, Alberta. If you need a nadir, this is it. The reasons for this fall have been hypothesized to death: MJ drove talented runners to other events; he intimidated other talented runners into gunning for second place at national title events. "There's no answer you can be sure about,'' Johnson said yesterday.

That mediocrity is over, and even Johnson agreed there might not be a reason for that, either. Last summer in Athens, then 20-year-old NCAA champion Jeremy Wariner led a U.S. medal sweep in the Athens 400, heralding the start of a new era. His former Baylor teammate, Darold Williamson, who has run the fastest 400 time in the world this year, said yesterday, "This is the year of the quarter-milers, as we all know.'' All of the best qualified Thursday for the semifinals of what will eventually be the deepest one-lap competition anywhere in the world this year.

It is not yet July and seven U.S. runners have broken 45 seconds for the quarter. Wariner, who graciously would tell anyone with a set of ears last year that Williamson was at least his equal, has proved it by trailing his former Baylor teammate in the rankings. Think back to '96 now. Five Americans have run faster than Black's sliver-medal time. Sure, it was nearly a decade ago, but the Atlanta track was one of the fastest in history. It's a fair comparison.

Shoe companies have noticed. Johnson, now an agent running his own management and athletic performance company, signed Wariner last year after the Olympic Games and Williamson this year after Williamson won the NCAA title. LaShawn Merritt won the NCAA indoor 400-meter title as a freshman at East Carolina and promptly turned pro at age 18. Florida's Kerron Clement broke Johnson's indoor 400-meter record and might be the best of the entire bunch. He'll go pro after Carson, where he is running the 400 hurdles.

That's depth.