Running as a sport has become so tainted that charges of drug use seem to surround the winner of any race. Young runners might find it tonic to look to Ray Piva, a world champion, who got his start at 55. Eve Pell is the former the number one ranked woman road runner age 60-64 in the United States, and writes a regular column on veteran athletes for Pacific News Service.

Scandals involving various "performance-enhancing" drugs have accompanied news of track and field events like a cloud for some time now. So it's refreshing to report on one world champion runner who takes nothing stronger than coffee.

Ray Piva is not yet a household word, but that's because he got a very late start and is still racking up records.

Piva is 73, and nowhere near finished with racing. A phenomenon who has broken age-group marks in distances ranging from one mile to one hundred miles, the versatile, white-haired Piva didn't begin running until he was 55.

He still finds it hard to believe that he is a world champion. "I worked hard for 40 years in a sausage plant. I just thought about going home at the end of the day and going to work again the next day," he said in a recent interview. "Never in a million years would I have expected this."

In 1996, Piva set a world record in the over-70 division by running fifty miles in 7 hours, 48 minutes. A year later, he did 100 kilometers (62 miles) in 10 hours, 40 minutes, setting a North American record for the distance -- despite the added burden of lugging a cast on one hand, which was broken.

Two years ago, he joined with three other septuagenarians to set a world's record in the mile relay, with Piva turning in the fastest leg. "That range of distances is unparalleled," said Mike Fanelli, a coach and running aficionado. "The mile to the marathon spread is considered huge, but Ray's range is four times that."

He has run the "Western States" race five times. That's a torturous trail that begins in the icy Sierras and traverses rivers and sun-baked canyons for 100 miles. He's the only competitor over 65 ever to win the silver belt buckle awarded to those who make it in less than 24 hours.

"You have to be in perfect shape to do that," he conceded. "Forty per cent of the starters don't finish -- the heat and the terrain get you. It's the canyon walls, you run down one side and walk up the other."

Three years ago, at mile 90 of Western States, Piva fell and injured his back so badly he could not finish. Doctors were gloomy about his chances of ever racing again, but Ray found a physical therapist who designed a program of strengthening and stretching. In a matter of months, he was as strong as ever.

Piva was not always so fit. Like most men of his generation, he smoked

and he enjoyed eating the sausages he made. "The fat content of the meat was very high, but they never told us about cholesterol," he said. "They never even told us that smoking was bad." But one day, 30 years ago, he took off his gloves at a soccer game and was appalled to see that his hand had turned yellow. "The doctor told me to stop. I got in my car, threw away the cigarettes, and that was that," he said.

His son, who runs, urged Piva to take a stretching class at Skyline College. The instructor made the class run around the track once, and after that Piva began to jog. Later he joined an informal running club, where he came to the attention of Mike Fanelli.

Piva, now retired, plays cards in the afternoon at the Italian Athletic Club with boyhood friends. "My buddies tell me, 'You're crazy.' They don't know nothing about running, they say it's gonna kill me and stuff like that," he observed.

"In their young days, they were all good soccer players, but now they want to park right next to the club so they won't have to walk even a block." His buddies are curious. "They ask me, what do I eat? They think I have a magic food or something. They don't understand the training you have to do for these races."

When Piva and his friends were kids, a big thrill was Playland-at-the-Beach, an amusement park. For everyday diversion, they visited the settlement house in their North Beach neighborhood, which housed a clinic, a boxing ring, and a basketball court. "There was a little hamburger place called Hogan's, with a slot machine. This was the extent of our lives,"

he recalled. "No one had a car."

Now, as a celebrity in the racing world, he gets free airline tickets to compete in races in Canada and other places. The long-distance runners call him "Papa Ray," and when Eva, his wife of 47 years, suddenly passed away two years ago, they looked after him.

"I have all new friends now. I expected that runners would be very competitive people, but they did everything to help me when I was getting started. Sometimes I used their advice to beat them," he said with a smile. "Running is one of the greatest things that ever happened to me."