Hammer Time

If track and field is sports' equivalent of the witness-protection program—a guarantee, at least in non-Olympic years, of anonymity—where does that leave those who toil in its most obscure event, the hammer throw?

During the U.S. indoor season, when the 16-pound hammer throw is replaced by its sister event, the 35-pound weight throw, it leaves the discipline's practitioners in places like Kent State and Azusa Pacific, while the meets they are supposedly part of are held miles away, in arenas in downtown Cleveland and Los Angeles. In the days when the national indoor championships were held at Madison Square Garden, the weight throw took place halfway across New Jersey, in the bowels of Princeton's Jadwin Gym, where, three floors beneath the earth's surface, competitors grunted and strained like a race of banished giants. But if the throwers grumbled about their lot, they kept it to themselves, which was probably best, because given a choice, many meet directors would ignore the weight throw altogether.

Lance Deal doesn't give them a choice. With the Atlanta Games 500 days away, the 33-year-old Deal, who finished seventh in Barcelona in 1992 and was ranked fourth in the world last year, could become the first American to win an Olympic medal in the hammer since Harold Connolly won the gold in 1956. To promote the hammer throw in the U.S., Deal has used his own meager earnings to establish a nonprofit corporation, the U.S. School of Hammer Throwing. In 1993 he paid his coach, Stewart Togher, out of his own pocket when Togher's position—and salary—as national hammer throw coach was eliminated by USA Track and Field. And Deal spent more than $5,000 to fly his training partners to meets that year, thus guaranteeing that the weight throw would have the three competitors required by Grand Prix rules for points to be awarded.

"A lot of it is self-preservation," Deal says. "If the event fades away, I'm out of a vocation and an avocation. I got into this because I love it. I don't want to see it disappear."

The weight throwers didn't exactly disappear at the USA Mobil Indoor Track & Field Championships in Atlanta last weekend, but they were hidden behind an ominous black curtain at one end of the Georgia Dome. In front of the curtain the bright lights belonged to Michael Johnson, who won his 40th straight 400 meters, clocking 44.63 seconds to break his world indoor record by .34 of a second. Johnson got a standing ovation from-the crowd of 15,239 during his victory lap, at the end of which he was met by fourth-place finisher Mark Everett, who did the only sensible thing: He bowed histrionically.

There were no bows on Deal's side of the curtain. When the meet announcer invited spectators to step over and watch the weight throw, he got perhaps 100 takers. "Lot of people for a hammer throw," Deal would say later.

He didn't disappoint them. In the second round he threw 81'11�", bettering his own three-week-old world best (so designated because the governing body for track and field, the International Amateur Athletic Federation, does not recognize the event) by three inches. In the stands Togher was briefly jubilant, then confided, "We're playing, doing a Bubka." The reference was to the calculated way that pole vaulter Sergei Bubka has repeatedly edged his world record higher, by fractions of an inch at a time, to claim bonus money with each new mark.

When Deal muscled the weight out 82'11�" on his fourth throw and a stunning 84'10�" on his sixth, Togher commenced a delirious jig. "I take back that Bubka remark," he said. "I've waited many years for a throw like that."

Deal improved his world best three times. Besides adding more than three feet to the mark, Deal earned his second overall Grand Prix title as the highest point-getter on the indoor circuit and the $40,000 that goes with that distinction. "What a week!" he said, exulting. "I even had my first premeet press conference."

Deal discovered the hammer the only way Americans do—by accident. He grew up in Casper, Wyo., playing all the usual American sports, most of them very well. At Natrona County High, Deal was an All-America linebacker, but he saved his deepest passion for the discus. "I just loved watching the thing fly," says Deal. "I could throw until dark or until the thunderstorms came and then walk home."