ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, August 3, 1996 TAG: 9608050059
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ATLANTA
SOURCE: FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORTS
Neither age nor pain could stop Jackie-Joyner Kersee on Friday night.
She sat on the track patting her thighs, a desperate attempt to defy time and the chronic ache in her right hamstring. Then, she crouched in a sprinter's stance, took off down the runway and unleashed her body toward the sand pit, her glorious Olympic career about to end with one final leap through the air.
When Joyner-Kersee landed, she crawled from the pit with a look of disgust. But soon, she was smiling and waving to the crowd.
The leap of 22 feet, 113/4 inches had given her the bronze medal - her sixth and final Olympic prize.
``Tonight is very special,'' she said. ``Of all the medals I've won, this one I really had to work for.''
Joyner-Kersee was in sixth place heading into the last of her six jumps. To that point, her best leap was 22-61/4, far off her Olympic-record performance of 24-33/4 at the 1988 Seoul Games.
After each jump, she brushed off the sand and headed back to the bench, trying to figure out how to squeeze one more big leap out of her 34-year-old legs.
Finally, she found the answer.
As she stared down the runway one last time, she said to herself, ``Forget about the leg. This is it, Jackie. This is it. All week, you've trained for this. It's not like you want it to be, but this is your last shot. So get down that runway and attack the board or don't jump at all.''
Even after her final attempt moved her into third place, Joyner-Kersee still had to wait an agonizing 10 minutes to know if her jump would stand up to the competition.
Iva Prandzheva of Bulgaria fouled. Then, Agata Karczmarek of Poland came up short. Finally, Niki Xanthou of Greece stepped to the runway. She was the final woman who could knock Joyner-Kersee off the victory stand.
Xanthou tried to exhort the American crowd to make some noise, but she found no takers. However, when her last jump came up a half-foot short of Joyner-Kersee's best, the noise erupted.
Joyner-Kersee finished behind Chioma Ajunwa of Nigeria, who took the gold with a leap of 23-41/2, and Fiona May of Italy, who won silver at 23-01/2.
Joyner-Kersee's appearance in the long jump had been threatened by the sore hamstring, which knocked her out of the heptathlon last week. But the leg felt better after a few days of treatment and she managed to qualify for the long jump final with only one leap Thursday morning.
Carl Lewis, another American track and field legend, played cheerleader as the men's 400-meter relay team blazed through the semifinals, keeping alive Lewis' chances of getting a record 10th Olympic gold medal. Lewis, who has anchored six 400-meter relay teams to world records, hopes to be added to the team for the final.
U.S. men's track coach Erv Hunt said the health of Leroy Burrell, who has heel tendinitis, will determine whether Lewis runs. Burrell, Lewis' close friend and longtime training partner, withdrew Thursday. But Hunt said that Burrell was feeling better Friday and may be ready to run in the final.
If Burrell, Jon Drummond, Dennis Mitchell and Mike Marsh are healthy, ``those four will run,'' Hunt said.
The U.S. 1,600-meter relay team lost its anchor, Michael Johnson, but still advanced to the final. Johnson pulled out before the race Friday with hamstring tightness, which he first felt at the end of his world-record run of 19.32 seconds in Thursday night's 200.
But it many ways it was Joyner-Kersee's night. Coming into her fourth Olympics, she had won three gold medals, a silver and a bronze in her two signature events, not to mention four titles at the world championships.
In recent years, though, age and aches began to take their toll.
She would have retired after the world championships except that these Olympics were in her home country.
Joyner-Kersee will be remembered as the greatest female athlete of her generation. Maybe it would be more appropriate to call her one of the greatest athletes, period.
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Jackie Joyner-Kersee won a bronze medal Friday nightby CNBin the women's long jump, despite an injured right hamstring, to end
her Olympic career. color.