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Let Go Of the Baton
Within hours of winning the long jump Monday night and exuding class in the aftermath, Carl Lewis, winner of nine gold medals in four Olympics, turned selfish, lobbying for inclusion on the U.S. 4x100-meter relay team. Lewis finished last in the 100 at the U.S. trials. Despite that, and because he had twice anchored Olympic relay teams to gold medals (in 1984 and '92), coaches offered him the chance of being in the pool of seven sprinters vying for spots in the Olympic 4x100. The only condition was that Lewis attend a relay camp in Durham, N.C. Lewis declined, insisting that he be guaranteed not only one of the four relay spots, but the anchor leg. Now that he has captured the heart of these Games, Lewis apparently wants an unprecedented 10th gold medal so badly that he has forgotten having snubbed the team. "The pressure is on them, because people would like to see me run the relay," he said yesterday. He's right; people would like to see him run one last time. However, that doesn't mean that he should push a more deserving athlete off the relay. Lewis has said, "The U.S. needs to win the relay at home." But the Americans are heavily favored to do that without him. There is no patriotism in his quest, only self-promotion. The Olympic Reunion Center, established by the IOC, the USOC and Visa, has welcomed some 900 Olympic alumni from more than 10 nations and evoked hundreds of golden memories. One recent drop-in was 99-year-old Hal Haig Prieste, a U.S. bronze medalist in platform diving at the 1920 Antwerp Games. Prieste, who went on to a career in film and vaudeville, showed up carrying an ice hockey stick, which, in a bit of old shtick, he twirled over his head and held straight out while he performed deep knee bends. Moments later, Prieste spotted Aileen Riggin-Soule, 90, who won the gold in springboard diving in Antwerp. "You're looking pretty good," Prieste said. "You still single?" Many of the Olympians were looking good. Mal Spence, a 400-meter runner for Jamaica in '56 and '60, chatted with U.S. sprinter Art Bragg, whom he hadn't seen in decades. "First thing we talked about was track and field," says Spence. "Not our families, not our health, but track and field." Spence also talked about what the reunion center means to him. "I looked forward to this for months," he said. "It gives something to the Olympians who made the Games what they are. This is a thank-you, a very nice thank-you."
American Johnny Gray At 36, he is a year older than Carl Lewis. His knees require icing, and his best time—a still-standing U.S. record of 1:42.60—came 11 years ago. "I'm still here," says Johnny Gray. "I'm the grandfather of the 800." On Monday, Gray (above, right) made it clear that the youngsters in tonight's 800 final shouldn't underestimate him. Gray ran 1:44.00 to finish second in his semifinal heat and would have won but for easing up. "I thought it was a 1:45," said Gray. "I'm backing off and still running 1:44 flat." Tonight's race will be Gray's fourth Olympic 800 final. He has run erratically elsewhere but has established a suggestive Olympic pattern, placing seventh in 1984, fifth in '88 and third in '92. He likes to run from the front, so watch for him to take an early lead. And bring a stopwatch. It's too soon to time him with a grandfather clock.
Somewhere in the throng of spectators at these Games, there may be another Janet Dykman. Twelve years ago, caught up in the spirit of the 1984 Los Angeles Games, the then 30-year-old Dykman, of El Monte, Calif., bought a ticket to archery. "It was inspiring to watch," she says. Indeed, she returned home, pulled from a closet the old wooden bow she had used during a brief career as an archer in high school and decided to take up the sport again. She replaced her weekly bowling night with a weekly archery night, invested in a high-tech bow and by 1990 was on the U.S. national team. And today Dykman, at 42 the oldest female archer in the Games, shoots in the quarterfinals. Dykman, who earns her living making jewelry and ceramics, is a favorite among competitors for the wares she often sells at meets. Her most popular item: a silver bracelet engraved with arrows and a stick figure of an archer.
Sitting in the Nicaragua dugout on Monday, looking across a major league diamond at a pair of Cubans playing pregame catch, Luis Tiant blinked behind mirrored sunglasses. His past, he realized, was all around him. The Cuban-born Tiant, who spun a fabulous 19-year, 229-victory big league career that ended in 1982, has been the pitching coach for Nicaragua's national team since mid-January. And he's doing a terrific job. Nicaragua, despite an 8-7 loss to Cuba on Monday, enters the medal round with the best ERA (3.88) in the Games. Tiant has even gotten a few of his charges to employ, on occasion, the corkscrew windup that helped make him Boston's most beloved ballplayer during his years with the Red Sox. "But this is different than the majors," he says. "We're not out drinking rum-and-cokes at night." At 55, Tiant remains a large man, bluff and gesticulant. He is wont to work with three fingers the gray, downturned whiskers of his thick mustache. Tiant's pitchers revere him for his affable sagacity, his glib English and, particularly, all the "Hey Looies" that fly from the stands at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Tiant left Cuba in 1961 and didn't see his parents again until a dramatic reunion in Boston 14 years later. He vows not to return to his homeland as long as Fidel Castro holds power. "I am a Cuban and I will die a Cuban," Tiant says, "and I have made my life in the States. But now I am in the Olympics for Nicaragua. I'm proud of that."
Craig Ferrell, physician for the U.S. swimming team, has not been fooled by the Elvis impersonators gyrating around Atlanta. "The King is dead," says Ferrell, dismissing rumors to the contrary. "Absolutely." Ferrell was a 27-year-old resident in the emergency room at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis on Aug. 16, 1977, when Elvis was wheeled in. "I got a good look at him, and he was definitely dead," says Ferrell, adding, with a sports physician's trained eye, "He was not too athletic." That U.S. swimmers continue to ask Ferrell about that fateful night isn't surprising. What Olympian wouldn't be interested in a man with such a long list of records?
Elmadi Zhabrailov Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the brothers Zhabrailov have played geographic hopscotch in an effort to find a wrestling home. Lucman, 34, ended up in Moldova, near Romania, thousands of miles away from the 30-year-old Elmadi, who has made his new home in Kazakhstan, which borders China. They were together yesterday, though, locking up in the 180.5-pound class. "In our culture, youth respects the elders," said Lucman. "Usually it's the young guys who lose to the older guys." But Elmadi, a silver medalist in Barcelona, defeated Lucman 10-8 in the battle of the bros and went on to beat Les Gutches of the U.S. in the quarterfinals (Elmadi is on the right above against Gutches). As Elmadi goes for gold today, his personal coach will be in his corner cheering him on, a guy by the name of Lucman.
We knew the Games were important, but we had no idea how important until we glanced at yesterday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution. A story previewing the freestyle wrestling competition ran under this headline: World Dominance In The Balance.
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SI Olympic Dailies
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