STATITUDES

May 25, 1998

Marion Jones's 10.7l-second 100-meter dash last week in Chengdu, China, electrified the world of track and field. No, it wasn't a world record—it was simply within shouting distance of the mark, the otherworldly 10.49 run by Florence Griffith Joyner in 1988. Women runners in this decade have struggled to crack the alltime top five performances in the 100, 200,400 and 800 meters, most of which were run in an era when, it's become clear, performance-enhancing drugs were rampant, though there's no proof that Griffith Joyner was a user. By contrast, the men have spent the '90s rewriting the lists.