updated 10:27 a.m. ET Aug. 25, 2004

ATHENS, Greece - The image of Olympic track athletes is “wounded” by doping offenses, Jackie Joyner-Kersee said, “but the wound is healing.”

“I honestly believe, even with the scrutiny and all the negativity, that there are some real great athletes out there — very young athletes — and some veteran athletes that have given the sport a lot,” she told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

“I do feel that talent is going to prevail, and right now, we’re wounded — but the wound is healing.”

Slide show   Visions of gold: Aug. 29 Demark throws for handball gold, Argentina takes it to the net and Britain's Mark Lewis-Francis jumps for joy.

Carl Lewis echoed that, saying that “the vast majority do the right thing.”

“It really upsets me when I hear these athletes comment, ’Oh yeah, everybody does it.’ No — you chose,” he told The AP. “The vast, vast, vast, majority of the athletes are clean, hardworking, good people and they just want to be the best they can be. They want to represent their country well.”

Lewis — the winner of 10 Olympic medals, including nine golds — and Joyner-Kersee, the world record-holder in the heptathlon, spoke after an event at an Athens McDonald’s restaurant. They helped distribute “stepometers,” which measure the number of steps a person takes each day, as part of the chain’s program to promote physical activity.

The independent process of examining athletes for banned substances is improving, Lewis said. But even without testing, “I think that people know. I really do.

“If you get to know athletes, you know. You can understand. There’s a difference in athletes who take drugs and athletes who don’t. You can see it in their face, you see it in the way they respond. There’s a genuineness to their performance.”

Lewis said he was especially inspired by watching American Deena Kastor, who finished third in the marathon Sunday.

“The look on her face when she crossed the finish line — that’s what the Olympics, that’s what doing the right thing, that’s what all of this is about,” said Lewis, who won back-to-back 100-meter gold medals in 1984 and 1988, the second after drug user Ben Johnson was stripped of his gold.

“That’s the most touching moment of the games for me: Her crossing the line and getting the bronze medal.”

While Lewis said he doesn’t know many of the current Olympians, Joyner-Kersee has had the chance to work with several; her husband, Bob Kersee, is the coach for four athletes here, including American hurdlers Joanna Hayes and Sheena Johnson.

Lewis has been keeping busy in Athens watching sports he’d never seen before, including table tennis.

“So now, I’m a complete table tennis groupie. And then yesterday, I went to rowing,” he said. “And I went to team handball — so all the sports you don’t see in America that much. I’m going to volleyball. Of course, I will go to basketball. Um, and what else am I doing? Oh, I have to go back to team handball — I met the Greek national team and they said, ’You’ve got to come back, ’cause we’re going to win the gold medal.’ So I have to go back.”

“Believe it or not,” he added, “I am not getting to many track events because it’s cutting into my time at these other sports.”

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