FRANKFURT Adidas AG has suspended its contract with Tyson Gay after the former double world sprint champion failed an out-of-competition dope test, the German sportswear company said on Monday. 
 
 "We are shocked by these recent allegations, and even if we presume his innocence until proven otherwise, our contract with Tyson is currently suspended," an Adidas spokesman said. 
 
 Adidas' agreements with athletes give it the right to terminate the contract "if the athlete is found guilty of the possession or use of drugs or any other prohibited substance by the relevant governing sports body having jurisdiction over the athlete." 
 
 Gay, who has been on Adidas' books since 2005, had said on Sunday he had tested positive for a substance he could not identify and that he was pulling out of next month's world championships in Moscow. 
 
 "I don't have a sabotage story. I don't have lies ... I basically put my trust in someone and I was let down," the American said, adding that he had never knowingly taken a performance-enhancing drug. 
 
 Also on Sunday, former world 100 meters record holder Asafa Powell and Olympic 4x100 meters relay silver medalist Sherone Simpson said they had both tested positive for the stimulant oxilophrine at last month's Jamaican championships. 
 
 Powell and Simpson, both from Jamaica, have denied knowingly taking a banned substance. 
 
 The doping cases are a blow to the image of athletics a month ahead of the world championships in Moscow. The sport often struggles to maintain a high profile outside Olympic years. 
 
 German company Puma SE, which sponsors Jamaican athletics through a contract with the national association there, declined to comment because it does not have individual contracts with any of the athletes involved. 
 
 Puma does sponsor Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt, whose manager said he was not involved in the latest doping scandal. 
 
 Chinese sporting goods company Li Ning, which sponsors Powell, was not immediately available for comment. 
 
 (Reporting by Joern Poltz; Additional reporting by Keith Weir in London; Writing by Victoria Bryan; Editing by David Holmes) ||||| Tyson Gay, left, wins the 200-meter semifinal in 20.07 in the 2013 USA Championships at Drake Stadium in June. (Photo: Kirby Lee, USA TODAY Sports) Story Highlights Since when did track and field become cycling, where almost everyone has to cheat? 
 
 25 years ago, Ben Johnson started the Steroids Era in sports 
 
 15 years ago, Marion Jones reaffirmed that cheating was still rampant in track & field 
 
 Mark it down: July 14, 2013, the day that the once-revered sport of track and field took another step closer to not being worthy of our trust, or our time. 
 
 The steppingstones to oblivion are filling in for the sport: Ben Johnson in 1988 to Marion Jones in 2003 to Mr. Clean this past weekend. 
 
 Since when did track and field become cycling, where almost everyone seems to be cheating? And how many more drug scandals will it take to finally kill off an Olympic sport? 
 
 TRACK: Tyson Gay explains positive test 
 
 MORE: Tyson Gay's coach speaks out against doping 
 
 Twenty five years ago, Johnson kicked off the Steroids Era in sports in earnest when he won the men's 100 meters at the Seoul Olympics, then tested positive and was stripped of his gold medal three days later. There had been plenty of steroid use by the Eastern Bloc and other nations prior to 1988, but when the marquee event of the Games brings the most sensational drug bust in Olympic history, that does turn more than a few heads. 
 
 Fifteen years later, almost exactly a decade ago now, Jones and her BALCO buddies reaffirmed that cheating was still rampant in track and field – and that it didn't take a positive drug test to prove it. 
 
 On Sunday, word came that two-time Olympian and U.S. 100-meter recordholder Tyson Gay – a man who joined 10 other athletes in declaring he "competed clean" for a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency program – has admitted to testing positive for a banned substance and has pulled out of the track and field world championships next month in Moscow. 
 
 The 30-year-old Gay has been part of USADA's "My Victory. ... I compete clean." program, where his statement on the USADA website read: "I compete clean because I really believe in fairness, and besides that, my Mom would kill me! Just being honest. My mother and my sister have been great role models for me." 
 
 Mom cannot be very happy today. 
 
 "I don't have a sabotage story," Gay told reporters as he fought back tears. "I don't have any lies. I don't have anything to say to make this seem like it was a mistake or it was on USADA's hands, someone playing games. I don't have any of those stories. I basically put my trust in someone and I was let down." 
 
 Asked who that person was, Gay replied: "I can't really say it. Sometimes a human being naturally, generally trusts somebody. That's what people do." 
 
 No matter who gave him what, Gay is responsible for what he puts into his body, as he well knows. It's inexcusable for any athlete, much less someone as savvy as Gay, to take any questionable substance from anyone. 
 
 The news that Gay has tested positive is a devastating blow for track and field domestically and internationally. His admission occurred on the same day that Jamaica's Asafa Powell, an Olympic gold medalist and former world recordholder in the 100 meters, confirmed that he, too, had tested positive for a banned substance. News reports said that Powell was among five Olympic gold medalists from Jamaica (none of them reportedly named Usain Bolt) who tested positive for stimulants at their national championships in June. Now that's teamwork. 
 
 What's more, Jamaica's Veronica Campbell-Brown, the reigning 200-meter world champion and three-time Olympic gold medalist, was suspended last month pending an investigation into a positive drug test for a banned diuretic in May. 
 
 There's also quite a doping scandal under way in Turkey, ensnaring perhaps dozens of athletes, including the 2012 women's Olympic 1,500-meter champion and a two-time European hurdles champion. 
 
 And on and on it goes. There was a time when track and field athletes were some of the most famous sports figures in the country. They graced the cover of Sports Illustrated several times a year, as hard as that is to believe now. Mary Decker, for instance, was named Sportsman of the Year in 1983. Picture it: a middle-distance runner honored by SI in a non-Olympic year. 
 
 But performance-enhancing drugs have decimated the sport in the public's eye. And why not? If you can't trust a simple foot race going on before your eyes, why would you even bother to look? ||||| Until Sunday, it was almost possible to believe Tyson Gay. He’s a sprinter, and a damn good one—which means that a rational fan should know that he might be using performance-enhancing drugs. But Gay, the second-fastest man in history, doesn’t have the Popeye physique and crazy eyes of notorious dopers of the past; he’s calm, not manic; his head is of a normal size, in both the literal and clichéd sense of that phrase; his improvements over the years have come steadily, not wildly. 
 
 Now, though, he’s a drug cheat. Rumors on letsrun.com, a Web site known for accurate ones, started on Saturday. On Sunday, Gay revealed that he had tested positive for a banned stimulant. To his credit, he admitted what had happened. “I don’t have a sabotage story,” he said, “I don’t have any lies. I don’t have anything to say to make this seem like it was a mistake or it was on USADA ’s hands, someone playing games. I don’t have any of those stories.” 
 
 Contrast that with Asafa Powell, a Jamaican and the fourth-fastest man in history, who also was busted on Sunday. He, as athletes typically do, proclaimed that he had no idea what on earth had just gone on. “My team has launched an internal investigation and we are cooperating with the relevant agencies and law enforcement authorities to discover how the substance got in my system,” he declared. “I assure you we will find out how this substance passed our rigorous internal checks and balances and design systems to make sure it never happens again.” He must have eaten a bad steak, drunk too much Jack Daniel’s, or had someone drop a tablet in his beer. 
 
 There is much that we don’t know about these positive tests. Apparently, other announcements about other Jamaican athletes are coming soon. The accused will mount their defenses, and those defenses may be convincing. Nonetheless, it’s clear that the sport’s problem is endemic and appalling. With Gay’s bust, men implicated in doping scandals now own the twenty fastest hundred-metre times ever run by Americans. Every American gold or silver medalist in the race since 1988 was eventually busted for doping. And Carl Lewis, the winner that year—after a positive test ejected Canada’s Ben Johnson—didn’t just leave a trail of wheat germ in his wake. He tested positive for stimulants three times in 1988, though the results were thrown out. 
 
 Where does this leave Usain Bolt, the one man faster than Tyson Gay? He’s never failed a drug test. But now many of his countrymen have: Powell; Steve Mullings, one of the ten fastest men in history; triple gold-medalist Veronica Campbell-Brown; gold-medalist Sherone Simpson. Bolt is in something of the same position that Lance Armstrong was in about 2003: a man dominating a dirty sport as his rivals and teammates fall. It wouldn’t be a surprise if one day this summer Bolt starts talking about misreading the label on an herbal supplement—or if, a decade from now, he ends up talking to Oprah. 
 
 The problem in sprinting has long been like the problem in cycling. People think they have to dope in order to be competitive. Athletes test positive every year and get suspended. But that doesn’t break the cycle: it may just accelerate it. What high-school sprinter is going to think he or she can be the best in the country without using drugs now? Here is the argument that Ben Johnson’s coach made when persuading him, as a young runner, to get with the program: “You only cheat if you’re the only one doing it. This means if the other guys are doing it, and you start doing the same thing, it’s not cheating.” 
 
 How can sprinting change? Cycling has cracked down and cleaned up. Times in the Tour de France this year are far slower than in years past. (Though some riders are still going suspiciously fast.) Major League Baseball, after investigations and bloodletting, seems far less juiced than it was a decade ago. 
 
 So here’s one idea for track and field: change the incentive structure. When a baseball player or a cyclist is busted, the penalty hurts his team. If your third basemen tests positive for drugs, the whole team has to suffer through the search for a new one. Runners don’t really have teams, but they do have countries. So what if, to borrow an idea from Daniel Yi, countries were punished when their athletes test positive? 
 
 Tyson Gay was scheduled to represent the United States at the World Championships next month. He’s not going to go and so the U.S. will replace him. But what if the U.S. wasn’t allowed to send someone else? His lapse would be his nation’s loss. Countries can send three athletes to the Olympics in each Track and Field event. What if, after a positive test of a medal winner, they only got to send two the next time? National drug-testing organizations would have further incentives to crack down. Peer pressure against drug use would pick up. 
 
 That might not be enough. The culture of the sport is broken, and it needs repairing. The hundred-metre dash is one of the purest sporting events there is: this is how fast human beings can move. That’s why we take such pleasure in Usain Bolt’s beautiful loping stride or Tyson Gay’s amazing upright posture and the strain in his neck. And it’s why it so disappointing when, with the regularity of hot days in the summer, news comes that yet another sprinter has tested positive. 
 
 Photograph by Andy Lyons/Getty. ||||| Doping issues killing track and field again 
 
 Tyson Gay, Jamaican Olympic gold medalists test positive 
 
 Sunday, leading U.S. sprinter Tyson Gay and Jamaica's Asafa Powell, Olympic gold medalist and former world record-holder in the 100 meters, confirmed they have tested positive for banned substances. There were news reports saying Powell was among five Olympic gold medalists from Jamaica who tested positive for stimulants at their national championships last month. 
 
 Almost exactly a decade after the BALCO scandal all but destroyed track’s credibility, the sport is facing another legitimacy crisis. 
 
 Hey, pro cycling: move over on that trash heap, so there is some room for track and field. 
 
 Tyson Gay (L, orange shirt) besting Jamaica's Asafa Powell (red) in the 100 meters at the Diamond League meet July 4 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Both confirmed Sunday they have tested positive for banned substances. (Fabrice Coffrini/ AFP/ Getty Images) 
 
 Add that to the doping mess in Turkish track and field, with doping charges brought against the 2012 women’s Olympic 1,500-meter champion and a two-time European hurdles champion, and the only thing worse for the sport would be if Usain Bolt tested positive. 
 
 Bolt’s agent, Ricky Simms, told the Tribune in an email that none of the athletes Simms represents had tested positive. 
 
 It would be easy to say the Gay story was shocking, but it also might be disingenuous. The use of performance-enhancing drugs in the sport has been so widespread over the last 50 years that having another great champion test positive is about as shocking as the gambling in the movie, “Casablanca.” 
 
 All the facts of the Gay situation –including the confirming test of his “B” sample – are not in. But the reigning U.S. 100- and 200-meter champion will withdraw from next month’s World Championships, where his races against Bolt were expected to be among the highlights of the meet. 
 
 The surprising part of the Gay case is his willingness to take full responsibility for having the banned substance turn up in a May 16 out-of-competition drug test, even though he told reporters on a Sunday conference call there is an explanation that seemingly would suggest it was not his intention to dope. 
 
 The surprise there isn’t so great, either, since Gay always has been a stand-up guy 
 
 “I don’t have a sabotage story. I don’t have any lies,” Gay was quoted as saying. 
 
 “I don’t have any of those stories. I basically put my trust in someone, and I was let down.” 
 
 Gay, the 2007 world champion in the 100 and 200 and U.S. record-holder in the 100, would not identify the person in question. He indicated he would take any punishment “like a man.” 
 
 Defenders of track and field and cycling will be quick to say their sports catch people because their anti-doping efforts are serious, while pro sports like football, baseball, hockey and tennis have a wink, wink attitude toward use of PEDs. 
 
 No matter that such an argument is valid, it hardly absolves runners and cyclists of guilt for doping positives. 
 
 The anti-doping system has strict liability for anyone whose test comes back positive. Ignorance of what is in health supplements athletes use or what is in a substance recommended by a member of an athlete’s entourage is an explanation but not an exculpatory excuse. 
 
 The BALCO scandal – named for the California lab that helped design doping programs for athletes – began the undoing of several track athletes, including sprint superstar Marion Jones and another top U.S. sprinter, Kelli White, who had won the 100 and 200 at the 2003 world championships. 
 
 Three years later, U.S. sprinter Justin Gatlin tested positive for a steroid. Gatlin, then reigning Olympic 100 champion and reigning word 100 and 200 champion, vainly argued sabotage, served a four-year suspension and returned to win a bronze medal in the 100 at the 2012 Olympics. 
 
 Sunday, Powell's agent, Paul Doyle, confirmed in an email to the Tribune that Powell and Sherone Simpson had tested positive. The London Daily Telegraph identified Nesta Carter as another Jamaican positive. All had run on gold-medal Olympic relays. 
 
 In a statement, Powell said he tested positive for methylsynephrine but had never "knowingly or willingly taken any supplements or substances that break any rules. I am not now - nor have I ever been - a cheat." 
 
 Last month, two-time Olympic 200-meter champion Veronica Campbell-Brown of Jamaica was suspended for a positive test that international track federation spokesman Nick Davies characterized as a “minor violation.” 
 
 At a certain point, minor and major just run together. The sport again is running off the rails, just as cycling did, with Lance Armstrong at the throttle of a train wreck. 
 
 Tyson Gay is no Machiavellian liar like Lance. Gay’s doping violation may have been as inadvertent as it seems. 
 
 Yet that does not change how suspicious Gay’s stunning comeback this season suddenly feels, no matter how likable a person he is. 
 
 In track and field as in cycling, it is sadly no longer possible to give the benefit of the doubt to anyone. 
 
 Only the doubt remains. 
 
 It will never go away. 
 
 For track and field, that can only hasten the death of a sport that already is on life support in the United States.
– News that two of the world's top runners—American Tyson Gay and Jamaica's Asafa Powell—have tested positive for banned substances isn't just bad news for the sport. It might be fatal news for the sport, at least in the US, writes Philip Hersh at the Chicago Tribune. Years of positive doping tests going back to the Ben Johnson era had pretty much made track and field a joke before the latest revelations, and this just cements things. How can spectators trust anyone at this point? The benefit of the doubt is gone, and "for track and field, that can only hasten the death of a sport that already is on life support in the United States." Christine Brennan at USA Today has a similar theme, warning that "the steppingstones to oblivion are filling in for the sport." We're nearly at the point where it's a waste of time for spectators. "If you can't trust a simple foot race going on before your eyes, why would you even bother to look?" A little less fatalistic is Nicholson Thompson at the New Yorker, who offers a suggestion to help clean things up. It's time to start punishing not just individual runners but their nations. "Countries can send three athletes to the Olympics in each track and field event," he writes. "What if, after a positive test of a medal winner, they only got to send two the next time?" Drug-testing agencies might add muscle, and peer pressure within the sport might begin to shift against doping. Still, he writes, "that might not be enough." (Meanwhile, Adidas already has suspended ties with Tyson, reports Reuters.)