WHEN Roger Black makes his valedictory UK appearance, in the Great Britain v USA athletics international at Glasgow's Scotstoun on August 30, it will conveniently sandwich his superlative-strewn career between two Scottish tracks, writes Doug Gillon.

Black's first major title was 400 metres gold, at the 1986 Commonwealth Games, in Edinburgh, but this week, entering the home straight of his final season, he spoke openly of a far more contentious Scottish connection.

He owes his Atlanta Olympic silver medal, perhaps the defining achievement of his life, to drug-discredited David Jenkins, still, controversially, the Scottish one-lap record holder.

Black has never been a conformist, but enjoys a squeaky clean image - far more pristine than anything achieved by impromptu bathing in a steeplechase water jump.

He was ducked therein, with UK performance director Max Jones, in celebration last Sunday in St Petersburg after having captained the British men's team to a unique successful defence of the European Cup.

Shaking off the water may be easier than removing the stigma of guilt by association.

So why admit it, and tarnish an image enhanced by five European golds (two individual, three in relays), plus World and Olympic individual silver?

To understand, you have to go back more than a decade.

Black and several other British athletes regularly used to visit Jenkins who lived in some style in California.

The former Edinburgh Academy schoolboy, who had won the European title at 19, was established there as a successful businessman.

Unknown to his guests, he also ran a flourishing steroid-

trafficking network, estimated to be worth 70% of the $100m-a-year US market when he was caught in 1988, convicted, and sentenced to seven years.

''I was stunned when I heard. Then angry.

''I viewed it as a betrayal,'' says Black.

''What he did was abhorrent, as an athlete and later on. But who am I to judge him?

''There has to be forgiveness. I accept people's weaknesses, and stand by friends.''

Which explains how Black found himself in the middle of the Mojave desert, with Kriss Akabusi, and Daley Thompson, visiting Jenkins in jail.

''Yes, we got tarred with the same brush, and no matter what I say to you, only I know that I never, ever, used drugs.''

Years later, having split with his coach, Mike Whittingham, just 10 months before the Atlanta Olympics, Black turned in desperation to the now-released Scot.

''Yes, dealing with him represents a contradiction.

''I guess the truth is I needed him. That is the selfish side of

athletics.''

For all of the run-in to the Olympics, up to his remarkable silver behind the invincible Michael Johnson, Jenkins became Black's secret mentor.

''He told me to enjoy it, to live it, and savour it - things he never did. He saw me train only twice, but was on the phone every other day.

''He told me that if I ran fast, or ran badly, it didn't affect his life. It was only afterwards that I realised this was not quite true.

''In our first conversation after the Olympics, there was silence at the other end of the line, then Jenks said: 'Thank you for

allowing me to complete my

athletic career.' I found that very moving.''

Black's own career nearly never began.

A heart valve leak was diagnosed at the age of 11, and he has needed regular check-ups since. The only year he missed out was 1996, before the Olympics. He wanted nothing to stop him

racing. He believes that his heart pumping more strongly, compensating for the leak, may actually have benefited him as an athlete.

The son of a GP, he would have become a doctor himself: ''but for failing my A-Level maths. I would never have been a runner. It's a scary thought.''

There would have been none of the wealth, popularity and pin-up status.

''Because of my image the girls would be all over me. Mark, Jamie, and Iwan (Richardson, Baulch and Thomas, the other members of the Great Britain 4 x 400m relay squad) all laugh at it. Yes, I cringe sometimes - but what a problem to have!'' If there is a problem, it is his appeal to both sexes. Walking through a US airport, he spotted a British magazine, with the head-line: ''Our sporting poll for '96.''

Inside, there he was, topping the beefcake rankings in this gay magazine, ahead of Tim Henman and Alan Shearer. Richardson, accompanying Black, burst out laughing: ''I'm not so worried about you being No.1 in the poll. What worries me is that you bought the magazine!''

Black's last championship hurrah will be at next month's European Championships, a title he has won twice, but he acknowledges that staying ahead of the success-hungry pack in Britain's strongest event at the UK trials this month will be a demanding test.

Yet he still believes he can win the big prize once more.

Sipping tea, but avoiding the shortbread, on the douce fringe of Edinburgh's New Town, less than a mile from the boyhood home of his mentor, Jenkins, Black displayed a philosophical streak as we discuss his autobiography*.

''Can I win? Of course. I may not be as good as I once was, but I can be as good, once, as I ever was.''

How Long's the Course? by Roger Black (Andre Deutsch, #15.99).