LOS ANGELES -- Mickey Grimes beat former U.S. teammate Jon Drummond in the 55 meters Saturday night in the Los Angeles Invitational indoor track meet.

Grimes closed on Drummond in the final steps and won in 6.10 seconds. Drummond finished in 6.11.

After the race, Drummond was more concerned about a recent announcement by Marion Jones that she was working with Charles Francis.

''We don't need anything like this,'' Drummond said.

Jones has since cut ties with Francis after receiving widespread criticism from the track world.

Francis was the coach of Canada's Ben Johnson when Johnson won the 100 in the 1988 Seoul Olympics but was later stripped of his gold medal for using performance-enhancing drugs.

The coach was banned for life by Canada's track and field federation in 1989.

''The reason track suffers and doesn't get the sponsorships it should is that one of our top people is associating with a coach with a checkered past,'' Drummond said.

''That's not to say he shouldn't be given a second chance. But when potential sponsors of track meets in this country see something like this, they have a reason to not want to associate with our sport.''

Drummond and Grimes ran the first two legs of the winning American 400 relay at the world championships in Edmonton in 2001.

Bernard Lagat of Kenya won the mile in 3:59.72, capturing the event for a record fifth consecutive year.

Long jumpers Ralph Boston (1961-65) and Arnie Robinson (1976-80) are the only other athletes to win an individual event five consecutive years.

Steve Scott won the mile four times in a row from 1989-92.

Lagat, a former NCAA champion from Washington State, lives and trains in Tucson, Ariz. The warm weather there should help him to close the gap between himself and the world's leading miler, Hicham El Guerrouj.

''I'm getting closer all the time and I really would like to break his world record,'' said Lagat, the world's second-ranked miler the past two years.

Tucson also is the home and training headquarters for Yuliana Perez, who won the women's triple jump at 44 feet, 9¾ inches.

Perez, a graduate of Pima College, a two-year school in Tucson, had the three longest jumps of the competition.

Angela Williams, four-time NCAA 100 champion at Southern California, won the women's 55 in 6.73 seconds.

Kenta Bell won the men's triple jump at 56-4¾, the best indoor jump by an American this year.