Hurdles

NEW ORLEANS -- Gail Devers crawled and cried.The soles of her feet were charred and covered with blood. They were so swollen she looked like she was wearing five pairs of athletic socks. They hurt so badly that she would hop from one foot to the other, until she finally fell to the floor, dragging herself across the hardwood from her bed to the bathroom, silver scales appearing on her knees, spreading to her arms and face.She had been an Olympian, a sprinter capable of soaring over hurdles.

Top-ranked Gilman used its depth to capture a fourth straight Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association track and field title Saturday afternoon at Archbishop Spalding. Taking advantage of their talent across the board in sprints, distance, relays and field events, the Greyhounds finished with 202.5 points to easily beat No. 2 Mount St. Joseph (147) On the girls' side, top-ranked McDonogh used strong performances from Autumne Franklin, Jessica Caldwell and others for 137 points, pulling away late from Maryvale (89)

LOS ANGELES -- Roney, Roney, all the recruiters wanted Roney. Every time Woodlawn High track coach Dick Estes tried to sell his other top hurdler, he'd be rudely interrupted.Keep the dress socks, the recruiters said.Give us the three-piece suit.Only Torrance Zellner wasn't an accessory. Estes knew it, the recruiters blew it. Three years later, Jerry Roney is indeed a star in the 110-meter high hurdles. But Torrance Zellner is just as prominent in the 400-meter intermediate event.Zellner, 21, ranks eighth in the United States with two races left on his 1991 schedule -- the Olympic Festival in Los Angeles Sunday, and the Pan Am Games in Cuba next month.

Alexis Franklin is one of the most successful track and field athletes in Old Mill history. This year, the senior ran the fastest times in the entire country for the 400-meter hurdles (59.05 seconds) and the 300-meter hurdles (41.49 seconds). Those times came while winning the 400 at the prestigious Penn Relays in Philadelphia and the 300 at the Bob Golliday Invitational at Old Mill. The 300 time is also believed to be the fastest time ever run in the event in Maryland. But, to have it count in the state record book, she will have to do it again at the state meet, May 25-26.

GOTEBORG, Sweden -- Allen Johnson wears a T-shirt reading "No second chances," but the U.S. high hurdler got several breaks at critical moments before his victory yesterday at the world track and field championships.The U.S. men's 4x100-meter relay can only wish for a second chance after a botched baton exchange eliminated it in a first-round heat.Johnson's 3-inch victory in the 110-meter hurdles, with a time of 13.00 seconds, gave U.S. men and women their first sweep of all four hurdles events at an Olympics or world championships.

HOLLYWOOD -- Zoe Heller sold the film rights to her acclaimed novel What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal with a simple promise to herself: "I made up my mind very early that if you sell the rights to someone, you're handing it over to someone to do with it what they will. It's a losing proposition to kind of remain proprietorial," she said. Which is not to say that she wasn't hopeful. She had known of Patrick Marber, the screenwriter hired to translate her Booker Prize finalist novel for the screen, since they overlapped at Oxford University in the early 1980s.

NEW YORK -- The Olympic trials for U.S. track and field athletes start four weeks from Friday, and it is Kevin Young's plan to make the occasion a twice-told tale of personal success.When the nation's best runners, jumpers and throwers gather in New Orleans next month to try to qualify for the U.S. team that will compete in the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, Young hopes to complete an unprecedented double.He hopes to run not only the 400-meter intermediate hurdles -- the event in which he has been an NCAA champion, an Olympian and a world-class performer since 1988 -- but also the 110-meter high hurdles, a race he last contested six years ago, as a UCLA freshman.

Jason Panniell started running track as a hurdler just two years ago during his sophomore season at Mervo.He limped through an outdoor season last year with a fractured leg, yet, through sheer talent and determination, somehow managed to be among the state's best.And despite having to eschew club running to hold down a job last summer when most athletes of his caliber were competing in national meets, Panniell is among the state's best indoor 55-meter hurdlers.And this is Panniell's first indoor season.

NEW ORLEANS -- It was hot. Temperatures in the 90s. Humidity hovering at 50 percent. Sweat pouring off every spectator. Athletes hovering under umbrellas.Torrance Zellner kept telling himself last night he should be used to the heat. Raised in Baltimore. Nurtured on the University of Florida track in Gainesville.The man knows heat."There is your dry heat," he said. "Then, there is your wet heat. Real moist. This is a little hotter than Florida. This is real hot."It was so hot that Zellner almost ran himself right out of the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials.

Sheraie Darby imagined she heard the starting gun's explosion. She saw herself tearing off down the track.The 16-year-old Woodlawn junior envisioned herself sprinting toward the first curve and two of the 10 hurdles she first must clear with her lead leg, then her trail leg before landing and refocusing on the remaining course of the 400-meter hurdles."

Alexis Franklin finished fifth in the 400-meter hurdles at the Penn Relays two years ago and took second last spring. But the Old Mill senior took it to another level Thursday in Philadelphia. Franklin took the lead early and won in 59.05 seconds, beating out Kiah Seymour from Archbishop John Carroll (Wash.) and McDonogh's Autumne Franklin for her first victory at the prestigious track and field event held at Franklin Field. "This is by far the greatest thing I've ever won, the most important.

The senior won the 100- and 300-meter hurdles at Saturday's Pikesville Track Classic, helping the No. 1 Eagles take second place. Franklin set a meet record in the 300 hurdles when she came across in 42.33 seconds, comfortably defeating Old Mill senior Alexis Franklin (44.01), who beat her in the same race last year at Pikesville. Autumne Franklin won Saturday's 100 hurdles with a time of 14.47 seconds. Set to compete at Harvard next year, Franklin earned All-Metro second-team honors last spring and then made the first team after this winter's indoor season.

Constellation Energy Group and Exelon Corp. are expected to close their $7.9 billion merger Monday, after the deal cleared its final regulatory hurdle Friday. The approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ends an almost yearlong effort to combine the companies — creating the largest non-utility energy provider in the United States. The deal also means that Baltimore will lose its last Fortune 500 company; the new company will be headquartered in Chicago but will maintain a large footprint here, including a new building in Harbor Point.

Hartford achieved a pair of firsts last season, capturing the school's first America East Tournament crown and qualifying for its first NCAA Tournament. The No. 19 Hawks appeared to take another step in that direction when they took a 5-4 lead on Maryland in the third quarter Saturday. But the No. 10 Terps responded with a four-goal run and ended the contest with another four-goal spurt. Hartford coach Peter Lawrence said the players proved that they can compete with top-10 opponents.

Baltimore police have made an arrest in the killing of a 50-year-old man whose body was set on fire in April, and court documents appear to offer some insight into the tougher requirements new State's Attorney Gregg Bernstein has imposed on city homicide detectives.  Eugene Emmett Bates, 36, was indicted last week and charged in the death of Elmore Rembert, who police say was killed during an argument as the pair used drugs in a vacant home...

When a star cardiologist at St. Joseph Medical Center was accused of performing hundreds of unnecessary medical procedures in 2009, it changed the course of the Towson hospital and now raises questions about its future. St. Joseph plans to narrow its search for a new "strategic partner" in coming weeks, but analysts say it may not offer enough new paying patients and other immediate financial benefits to outweigh the liabilities - including hundreds of lawsuits and declining revenue.

BOSTON -- Joel Brown (Woodlawn) finished second behind fellow U.S. Olympic hopeful Antwon Hicks in the 60-meter high hurdles at the Reebok Boston Indoor Games at the Reggie Lewis Center last night. In a race not decided until the final stride, Hicks simply outleaned Brown over the finish line, crossing in 7.59 seconds to Brown's 7.61, with Aries Merritt (7.65) and Charles Allen (7.70) right on their heels. Brown will be 28 on Thursday. He has moved his training base from Columbus, Ohio (where he had been an assistant track coach at his alma mater, Ohio State)

ATLANTA -- Going into the final of the men's 400-meter hurdles last night at Olympic Stadium, Torrance Zellner said he wasn't thinking about what happened to him four years ago at the last U.S. Olympic trials in New Orleans. The false start he thought he had committed but wasn't called. The disappointing, sixth-place finish.Instead, the former Woodlawn High star was thinking about getting back here next month for the 1996 Olympics."To get this close, I really want to make it," Zellner said yesterday afternoon, relaxing in his hotel room.

Constellation Energy Group's plans to sell itself to Exelon Corp. cleared a regulatory hurdle Wednesday after the two companies reached a proposed settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice. The settlement, which requires court approval, calls for the companies to sell three coal plants in Maryland to alleviate market concentration in the mid-Atlantic electricity grid. Exelon and Constellation already announced plans to divest the Brandon Shores and H.A. Wagner plants in Anne Arundel County and the C.P. Crane plant in Baltimore County.