Crawford wins medal he’ll never need to give back

June 29, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — It takes something pretty special these days to surprise Shawn Crawford, a veteran with a load of hardware back home and even more memories in his head.

Something like, say, winning a national championship in 2009.

The 31-year-old Olympic gold medalist — gold medalist from 2004, that is — blew away his younger opponents in the 200-meter final Sunday to win his fourth U.S. title, a string that began in 2001, when Tyson Gay was wrapping up high school.

“Before this race, I thought I was done,” Crawford said. “After this, maybe I got a little bit more in me than I thought.”

He finished in a wind-aided 19.73 seconds to beat 21-year-old newcomer Charles Clark by .27 seconds and 24-year-old Wallace Spearmon, whom he considers his protege, by .30.

“He doesn’t really care what happens, he wants to see everyone else run their best too,” Spearmon said of Crawford. “He stays on me. It shows the type of person he is. He’s a great competitor, and a great friend.”

Allyson Felix joined Crawford as America’s other 200-meter champion.

A heavy favorite to win her fifth national title, Felix didn’t disappoint, finishing in 22.02 (also wind-aided) to edge Muna Lee. Marshevet Hooker finished finished third and grabbed the last spot on the U.S. team heading to worlds later this summer.

Crawford won in a field that was missing Gay, who didn’t compete, having already qualified in the 100 and 200 thanks to his world championships in 2007.

While Gay may be America’s biggest sprint star, nobody has a more intriguing story than Crawford. The latest chapter came at the Beijing Olympics last year, when he was awarded the silver medal after two runners who finished ahead of him were disqualified for running outside their lanes.

He never felt right about that, so he delivered the medal back to Churandy Martina — a burden off Crawford’s back, even though leaders in the Olympic movement refused to remove him from the record book.