Not every track and field athlete is running scared from what could become the biggest steroid scandal in the sport’s tarnished history.

Many elite competitors are cheering the aggressive retesting of samples from this summer’s U.S. and world championships for the steroid THG and a proposed lifetime ban of those who test positive in the future.

“I’ve had people ask me, “Do you think it’s going to ruin your sport?”‘ two-time world champion shot putter John Godina said in an interview with The Associated Press this week. “But this is just better and better and better. Every time somebody gets caught it improves your sport.”

As sprinter Jon Drummond put it, “It’s a great day for track and field.”

The athletes interviewed by the AP praised the unidentified coach who gave the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency a syringe containing THG, which previously had gone undetected.

“I think he’s a hero,” said Stacy Dragila, the 2000 Olympic gold medalist and former world record holder in the women’s pole vault. “I think a lot of people have been wanting to be able to be that person. For someone to take that step and go to that next level has really opened the doors.”

Four U.S. track and field athletes have tested positive for tetrahydrogestrinone, or THG, and Europe’s top sprinter has admitted taking it in nutritional supplements he says he thought were allowed.

Those using performance-enhancing drugs have always seemed to be a step ahead of those doing the testing. Acquisition of the THG sample, for the moment at least, closed that gap.

“This is something that’s been going on for a long time and it’s just that someone apparently got fed up,” said sprinter and hurdler Gail Devers, one of the most decorated athletes in U.S. history.

Devers, who turns 37 next month, said the steroid scandal was the biggest factor in her decision to return for another year of competition in 2004. She wants to continue to serve as an example.

“Everyone in track and field is not doing wrong,” she said. “Everyone in track and field is not making bad choices. I have respect for myself. I don’t care what environment you came from. There’s no excuses.”

Though most track athletes don’t use banned substances, nearly all in the sport at some point come under suspicion, especially anyone who wins.

“I think people look at me and say how did she get so good so fast,” Dragila said. “I have heard that people talk about me behind my back.”

There is obvious frustration among the athletes about the perception that you have to cheat to win in track and field, where there is testing at meets and random out-of-competition tests.

“People say our sport is the dirtiest sport of all, but I beg to differ,” Drummond said. “I don’t think we are the dirtiest sport because of the amount of testing we do, the number of athletes tested per capita. I think we’re the most policed sport, and we’re the most publicized sport when it comes to drugs.”

Godina and Drummond noted that other sports, baseball in particular, do not test as aggressively as track does.

“They get headlines for home runs. We get headlines for busted athletes,” Drummond said.

USA Track & Field, the sport’s national governing body, has proposed tougher drug rules that could include a lifetime ban for a first steroid offense. Such a ban is popular among track athletes who say they have nothing to worry about because they won’t test positive.

Godina would take the punishment even further.

“Once a cheater, always a cheater,” he said. “I like the idea of a lifetime ban and erasing anything they did from the record books.”

U.S. athletes testing positive for THG this summer face a two-year suspension, which would keep them out of next summer’s Olympics.

“I want the athletes who willingly, knowingly and intentionally took illegal substances with the intention of improving their performance to be banned and eliminated,” said Marla Runyan, who has won the last three U.S. 5,000-meter championships despite being legally blind.

“I don’t care if they’re a gold medal favorite. It doesn’t matter. I would rather take a team clean to Athens and walk away with some medals, or no medals.”

Britain’s Paula Radcliffe, considered the world’s best long-distance female runner, has been one of the sport’s most vocal anti-doping advocates. She has urged others to come forward with information.

“The scandal over THG may be the best thing that could have happened to athletics,” Radcliffe said in a column in the Daily Telegraph of London. “The cheats are being uncovered and they now have nowhere to hide. Those who thought they were untouchable and could get away with it are running scared.”

Lost in the controversy, Devers said, is the impact steroid use has on young people, especially aspiring athletes who feel they must cheat to get an edge in the intense competition.

“I want those kids to know there are people out there living right,” she said.