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Fold 'em Deal has quiet farewell at Olympics
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- There was no triumphant Olympic farewell for Lance Deal, just a quiet goodbye. The dominant U.S. hammer thrower over the past decade failed to advance past the Olympic qualifying round on Saturday (Friday EDT). Deal, 39, the Olympic silver medalist in Atlanta, finished 16th in the qualifying with a throw 248 feet, 1/2-inch. Only the top 12 advance to the finals. His throw was more than 22 feet off his American record of 270-9 set four years ago. "I would have liked to have gone out throwing a little bit farther," he said, "but circumstances wouldn't let me do that. It's still a sweet farewell. I went out there and had a blast. I tried to do the things that make it go far and it just wasn't there today. It's been a heck of a ride." It was his fourth Olympics, but it will be the first time since 1988 in Seoul that he will be watching the finals from the stands. Along with him will be his parents, his wife and his 6-year-old daughter. For the first time, all of them were together to watch his final Olympic competition. A back injury kept him from training in the weeks leading up to the games, and it showed. "I had a pretty serious injury about three weeks ago and I haven't really been able to throw since Labor Day," he said. "It didn't hurt today. Everything was OK. But I was really stale -- no horsepower. So, you've got to take what you can get." Deal, who lives in Eugene, Ore., and manufactures and sells hammer cages and throwing wires, has one more meet before retirement -- next month's Grand Prix finals in Quatar. "I'll try to get a little redemption there," he said. Deal and teammate Jud Logan, who was a miserable 39th Saturday, brought America into the ranks of the elite in a sport long dominated by Europeans. It takes seven years for an athlete to develop the technique necessary to be a world-class thrower, Deal said. He has been at it more than twice that long. Deal switched to the hammer as a senior at Montana State in 1984 because he realized that being left-handed was a serious problem for a discus thrower. Through the years, he worked on an event that lacks glamour and often isn't even held on the same field as the rest of the meet because of the distance that is required and the damage that is done by the heavy ball. Along the way, he had some major accomplishments, including two Pan American Games titles, a second-place finish in the 1998 Goodwill Games, eight U.S. outdoor titles, two runnerup finishes in the World Cup and 12 indoor weight throwing championships. After his final throw Saturday, the finality finally hit him. "Someone out there took my picture and asked me to smile," Deal said. "It's hard to force a smile when you want to cry."
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