THE SIDELINES : Feared Suits, Track Official Says

TORONTO — The Canadian Track and Field Assn. did not act on rumors of drug use among athletes because it feared legal reprisals, its chairman told a federal inquiry into drug use in sport.

Jean-Guy Ouellette also denied Wednesday earlier testimony at the probe that he was in league with the cheaters. Charlie Francis, coach of defrocked sprinter Ben Johnson, had even said Ouellette had promised to tip him off to impending drug tests.

But in his three hours of testimony, the embattled administrator was unwavering.

“We were told that athletes were developing musculature--I noted it myself--at a frightening rate,” Ouellette told the inquiry, sparked by the scandal that saw Johnson stripped of his gold medal at the Seoul Olympics after he failed a test for steroids. “But it was absolutely impossible for us to base (action) upon rumors and innuendo.”