ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 11, 1996 TAG: 9603110073
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: INDIANAPOLIS
SOURCE: From Knight-Ridder/Tribune and Associated Press reports
If the 100-meter butterfly were the 95-meter butterfly, Byron Davis would be on the 1996 U.S. Olympic team.
But in the last five meters Sunday, the double load of pressure Davis was carrying caused his shoulders to lock.
In the most-anticipated event of the night, Davis turned in a scorching 50-meter initial split as a screaming crowd at the Indiana University Natatorium rose. Had Davis finished first or second, he would have become the first black swimmer to make the U.S. Olympic team. But Davis' world-record pace took its toll as he faded to fourth.
While most of the attention was focused on Davis, a relative unknown, John Hargis of Clinton, Ark., slipped by for first place. Defending national champion Mark Henderson, who was last at the halfway mark, finished second.
Davis' attempt to make the team and make history fell about three-tenths of a second short in the most furious finish of the trials. He said he may have miscalculated on his final windmill stroke.
``I had to think that I was going to hold them off coming home,'' Davis said. ``I went in long. I could have taken an extra stroke. I thought my legs were strong enough to get me to the wall faster than they did.''
Davis was the best hope to break the U.S. Olympic team color barrier. Of the 455 swimmers at the trials, only eight are black. Anthony Nesty of Suriname became the first black swimmer to win an Olympic gold medal, when he out-touched Matt Biondi in the 100 fly at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
Davis has said a lack of pools in black neighborhoods has prevented black youngsters from pursuing the sport. Sabir Muhammad, an up-and-coming black swimmer who finished 26th in the 100 butterfly, cited a lack of role models in a sport usually associated with suburban country clubs.
Davis wasn't the only athlete whose finish evoked groans Sunday. Two of the most popular swimmers from the Barcelona Olympics were not factors in their events.
Mel Stewart, the butterfly innovator and gold medalist at 100 meters four years ago, finished fifth in the 200 and will not be competing in Atlanta.
``I looked up at the scoreboard and then I looked at the pool and I thought, `Why?''' said Stewart, who, instead of training for Atlanta, will start making an independent film called ``Jesse's Girl.''
Summer Sanders, who came out of retirement less than a year ago despite a successful career as host of MTV's ``Sandblastsports'' show, said she was done in by nerves. She finished seventh in the 200 individual medley. Summers has another shot at making the team in the 200 butterfly Tuesday.
``A lot of the people I talked to making comebacks agree that the more you experience, the more you know, so the more you think,'' she said.
Eric Wunderlich has had too much time to think about his three consecutive third-place finishes - in the 1992 trials and in the 100 breast stroke last week. He achieved his Olympic dream by placing second in the 200 breast stroke behind Kurt Grote.
``When I made the turn, I thought, `Oh, God, not third again. If I get third again I'm not getting out of this pool,''' Wunderlich said. ``I was horrified to look at the scoreboard, so I looked at the Michigan crowd and they were cheering, but third-place finisher Steve West is from Michigan, too, so I knew I'd have to look at the scoreboard.''
Jessica Foschi, trying to get people to talk about her swimming instead of her failed drug test, qualified sixth among eight swimmers in Sunday's preliminaries of the 800 freestyle with a time of 8:44.14. The 15-year-old must place first or second in today's final to win a trip to the Atlanta Games.
``A good goal for me is to be in the top four,'' she said Sunday through a spokesman for U.S. Swimming. ``I need a swim that feels good. I don't know what I can do.''
Foschi won the 800 at the U.S. Open last year before the anabolic steroid was detected in a drug test at the summer nationals.
At the trials, she faces a formidable field that includes 15-year-old Olympic wannabe Brooke Bennett and world record-holder Janet Evans in their second showdown of the meet.
LENGTH: Medium: 78 linesby CNB