ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, August 3, 1996 TAG: 9608050028
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: NOTES
JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ATLANTA
Folks at the Atlanta Games were still talking Friday about Michael Johnson's world-record run in the 200 meters.
It was unquestionably one of the greatest achievements in track and field history, much less the Olympics, but can it be put into perspective?
Asked repeatedly Thursday night what going that fast - more than 23 mph - was like, Johnson shrugged, and then finally got us mere mortals up to speed.
"Go out and get a go-kart,'' Johnson told the media after his Olympic double. "Then find a hill, and you'll know how it feels.''
The amazing notion is that Johnson believes he might be able to go even faster than 19.32 seconds in the event, "if I don't stumble coming out of the blocks, which cost a few-hundredths of a second.''
Frankie Fredericks of Namibia and Ato Boldon of Trinidad and Tobago finished second and third, respectively, in the 200, as they had behind Canadian Donovan Bailey's world-record 9.84 in the 100 dash.
"I said before that the man who wins the 100 is the fastest man alive,'' said Boldon in the post-race news conference. "I think the fastest man alive is sitting to my left. Michael is the fastest human now, all respect to my friend Donovan.''
Johnson didn't know he was going to win. He did know something else, however.
"Coming off the curve, I knew I was running faster than I ever had in my life."
His 100-meter split was 10.12 seconds.
Fredericks' 19.68 clocking would have won the 200 in all of the past Olympics. Boldon got only a bronze with a 19.80. The event has seen only two faster times in past Games, by Joe DeLoach (19.75) and Carl Lewis (19.79) in Seoul in 1988. Lewis ran a 19.80 and got gold in Los Angeles in 1984.
OLD LEGS: With the controversy surrounding whether Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson will run in relays for the U.S. tonight, 4 x 100 leadoff man Jon Drummond offered another option.
"We have so much depth at sprints, we could go get [U.S. coach] Erv Hunt and let him run the anchor. That's how deep we are in sprinters.''
OLYMPIC PROS: With the baseball competition ending today, the IOC looks toward its September vote on whether to allow pros into the competition in the Sydney Games in four years.
If that happens, as expected, don't expect major leaguers, with the Games scheduled from Sept.15-Oct.1.
"We've spent a lot of time talking about it,'' Bud Selig, baseball's acting commissioner, told the Atlanta Journal. "But let's say your team and mine are out of it, and we supply a player, but we're playing a team that's not out of it. That skewers the pennant race. That's what we worry about.''
Said players union chief Don Fehr, "We could essentially say that for 2000, anybody whom a club doesn't bring up on Sept.1 would be eligible to play.''
The IOC is known to want major-leaguers, just like the Dream Team for basketball.
Skip Bertman, coach of the U.S. team of amateur players that won the bronze medal Friday, said after the victory over Nicaragua that he would rather see Olympic baseball the way it's played now.
"I don't think that a group of professionals can better exhibit the Olympic ideal than our boys did,'' said Bertman, who coached LSU to the College World Series title in June. "These kids are the 'Dream Team' if people want the Olympic ideal.''
Although he will be signing a professional contract with the Detroit Tigers soon, pitcher Seth Greisinger of Virginia said Olympic baseball doesn't need to change.
"There are people I'm sure who want a definite gold medal for the U.S., like in basketball, and want no competition,'' Greisinger said. "If that's what you want, fine. If you want people with a dream, the fairy tale side, then they shouldn't have major leaguers here. I like what we do now.''
DOGGONE: The record women's soccer crowd of 76,481 for Thursday night's U.S. gold-medal victory over China at Stanford Stadium created a big-time atmosphere, but one longtime viewer of another kind of football in Athens didn't like one part of the Olympic experience.
"They should have brought Uga out there,'' the man said of the real Georgia Bulldog. "Those Olympic people can take this Izzy back to Atlanta with them.''
RINGSIDE: Although the boxing competition at Alexander Memorial Coliseum - Georgia Tech's hoops home - doesn't end until Sunday, the medals count for the sport is finalized, if not the tint of the hardware.
Cuba, the United States, Russia, German and Kazakhstan combined to win 25 of the 48 medals in 12 weight classes (both semifinalists get a bronze). Cuba leads with seven, one more than the U.S. That pushes the Americans to a leading 102 boxing medals in Olympic history.
BULL'S EYE: The gold medal in men's individual archery competition won by Justin Huish of the U.S. was a stunner. He's 21, and his presence gives the sport hopes for more exposure in this country.
After he'd won the medal Thursday, the ponytailed Californian who shoots while wearing his cap bill pointed backward said, "I'm stoked.'' He said he reverses his cap "because it gets in the way of the [bow] string. . .. It's me. I'm a California kid. I like to wear my hair long.''
American male archers have won gold in five of the past six Olympics they've attended. The list includes Darrell Pace, John Williams and Jay Barrs.
Huish may be different, but in one way, he was like so many other Americans at these Games. He cried on the medal stand.
METAL MEDALS: Those gold medals, 637 of them, they're handing out at the Atlanta Games? They're actually sterling silver.
The medals are plated with six grams of 22-carat gold by the silversmith, Reed & Barton of Taunton, Mass. The silver medals are solid sterling silver, and the bronze are solid commercial bronze.
The gold in each gold medal is worth about $75.
BALLS: The table tennis competition is history at the Georgia World Congress Center. In 300 matches over 10 days, the smashers used 3,600 pingpong balls.
And none even rolled under the furniture.
LENGTH: Long : 113 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Justin Huish gets a hug from his father after theby CNBU.S. won the gold in the men's team archery competition at the Stone
Mountain Archery Center on Friday.