ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 2, 1996 TAG: 9608020051
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ATLANTA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
THE WORLD'S GREATEST athlete proves it with a gold medal in the decathlon.
The nightmare is over for Dan O'Brien. It ended on the Olympic Stadium track when he crossed the finish line in his final event, exhausted, his face contorted in pain.
He is, at last, an Olympic decathlon champion. The greatest athlete in the world.
The Olympic gold medal everyone thought O'Brien would win four years ago finally was his Thursday night, and he celebrated by dropping to his knees and crying.
There were hugs all around - from competitors, from his adoptive father Jim O'Brien, and from Michael Johnson, who set a phenomenal world record in the 200-meter dash earlier in the evening.
O'Brien finished with an Olympic-record 8,824 points, the sixth-highest score of all time. Germany's Frank Busemann, who had four personal bests and tied two others, took the silver at 8,706. Tomas Dvorak of the Czech Republic won the bronze medal with 8,664.
``I turned back all the challenges and challengers today,'' O'Brien said. ``I felt strong enough to do whatever it took to win the gold.''
The biggest day of O'Brien's life began in a downpour and took 13 1/2 hours to complete.
Most of the doubt about who would win ended in the ninth event, after darkness fell, when O'Brien lined up for his final throw of the javelin.
O'Brien had hardly shown any emotion throughout the day, but as soon as he let it loose, he knew it was a long one. He jumped up and threw his fists in the air. The throw was 219 feet, 6 inches, the only personal best he managed in the two-day competition.
O'Brien had a 209-point lead over Busemann entering the 10th event, the 1,500 meters. But he had to come only within 40.5 seconds of Busemann to clinch the gold.
O'Brien faded midway through the race, but mounted a final kick at the end to erase all doubt.
``I heard the crowd chanting `USA, USA,''' O'Brien said. ``It's what I'd thought about when I was jogging back home.''
Adopted at age 2, raised in the small southern Oregon town of Klamath Falls, O'Brien grew into a rowdy teen-ager who flunked out of college because he partied too much.
Finally, he was readmitted to the University of Idaho. He eventually quit drinking and dedicated himself to becoming the world's greatest athlete.
But a nightmare in New Orleans four years ago haunted O'Brien until Thursday night.
He already was the world champion. He and U.S. teammate Dave Johnson were the subject of an intense ``Dan and Dave'' advertising campaign by Reebok.
The stage was set for Barcelona, but O'Brien flunked the audition.
In the pole vault, he passed to 16 feet, 3/4 inches, then missed three times and failed to even make the U.S. team.
O'Brien went on to set the world record just a few weeks after the Olympics, then won two more world championships. But everything wasn't set right until Thursday
O'Brien learned not to be so cocky. In the pole vault at the U.S. trials, and again at the Olympic Games, he started at a cautious 14-9. Thursday night, in a tedious pole vault competition that lasted four hours, O'Brien passed the height of 16-3/4, then cleared 16-4 3/4.
When the day began in a driving rain, Busemann broke his own world best in the 110-meter hurdles, winning in 13.47 seconds. The German had cut O'Brien's lead to 71 points. O'Brien padded the margin back to 142 with a 160-foot discus throw.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP Dan O'Brien won the decathlon on Thursday night withby CNBan Olympic-record 8,824 points. He tossed the javelin 219 feet, 6
inches, a personal best. color