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Still the Man

Dan O'Brien turned back time, and Chris Huffins, at the Goodwill Games

by Tim Layden

Issue date: July 22, 1998

Other Flashbacks July 21, 1986: Turner's Goodwill not a very good show July 21, 1986: Jackie Joyner, our woman in Moscow August 8, 1994: Dream Team or amateur hour? July 22, 1998: Dan O'Brien, still the man July 22, 1998: Prize money vs. appearance fees July 27, 1998: Donovan Bailey and Michael Johnson

Together Dan O'Brien and the decathlon have shared a gold medal (at the 1996 Olympics), three world championships and a six-year-old world record that still stands. Yet they have never been good friends. "Every competition has scared me to death," says O'Brien. "I love training, but competing is another thing altogether." He won the unofficial title of world's greatest athlete in Atlanta, but a year later he was dumped by his shoe sponsor, Nike, whose representatives told him that the company that invented creative athletic packaging couldn't figure out how to market the greatest decathlete in history. In all, O'Brien's career has been fabulously successful -- but a little less than fulfilling.

O'Brien's performance at this week's Goodwill Games in New York, however, was one of the major surprises of the season. After missing all of 1997 with assorted injuries and evoking suspicion that he was finished, he scored 8,755 points, his sixth-best total ever, to win the first decathlon that he has entered since Atlanta.

Although at 32 O'Brien may be near the end of his career, he's clearly not packing up. "I'm going to stick around until they throw me out," he says. "I want another world championship and I want another Olympic gold medal."

He might just get it, and join Bob Mathias (1948, '52) and Daley Thompson ('80, '84) as the only repeat Olympic decathlon winners. In oppressive heat and blustery winds at the Goodwill Games on Monday, O'Brien overhauled 28-year-old U.S. champion Chris Huffins with a spectacular second day in which he set a decathlon personal best in the 110-meter hurdles (13.67 seconds) and equaled his best in the pole vault (17' 3/4"). His score through nine events, 8,245 points, was the best in history.

Huffins scored a respectable 8,576 points. Like O'Brien, the 6'2", 190-pound Huffins is fast and explosive. He is such a gifted athlete that the Oakland Raiders have invited him for a tryout five times. He has declined, saying, "Football isn't a good sport to play if your heart isn't in it." Besides, he has a rivalry to deal with, the decathlon's first since Dan and Dave in '92.

Issue date: July 22, 1998

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