THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 2, 1996 TAG: 9608020698
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: Olympics '96
SOURCE: Tom Robinson
From Atlanta
LENGTH: 71 lines
Lawrence Johnson picked up the ringing telephone and listened. He nodded. ``The Today Show on Saturday?'' Johnson said. ``Fine. That's with the gold medal, right?''
Somebody will own that pole vaulting medal by Saturday morning. Might as well be Johnson, even though the Great Bridge graduate looked anything but golden Wednesday when he struggled to qualify for tonight's Olympic final.
Thursday afternoon's mood was lighter. Johnson's harrowing qualifying round was done. His right ankle, which he sprained late in the session, had been treated and felt good enough that it won't be an issue today, he said.
Yet the picture in his head was the same, clear as ever. It's why Johnson said his network appearance won't require early rising -- he expects to never hit the sack tonight.
``I would feel a little funny, I guess, doing the interview and not winning,'' Johnson said. ``But I really don't see not winning. I see winning, and anything else is just kind of black. It may be crazy, but that's just the way I'm seeing it.''
Johnson saw most of Thursday from the undisclosed hotel he's in under an assumed name. With a stimulator attached to his ankle, Johnson relaxed and took a bevy of phone calls, a couple of which were to secure better seats for his family, who watched qualifying from the opposite end of the stadium.
Around him were his comfort items -- his electronic keyboard, a gallon of orange Gatorade, bananas, a bag of pretzels and a box of oatmeal cream snack cakes. Yo! Party at Lojo's?
``I'll be in bed by 10,'' he said. ``If we had to have a bad day, then the bad day is over and out of the way. So we go in Friday and everything's in our favor.''
The first promising thing is the final starts at 5 p.m. Qualifying began at 9:30 a.m., but only 90 minutes before Johnson was ripping through and around rush-hour traffic, risking the life of his new red Camaro, late for a most important date.
Johnson apparently has hidden himself away so well that the hotel's switchboard never found him with its promised 6 a.m. wakeup call. If his agent's assistant hadn't just happened to call at 7:30, LoJo might have been a humiliating Olympic no-show.
``I'm sitting there rationalizing the whole time -- gold medal or reckless driving ticket?'' Johnson said. ``I already had a plan worked out if I was stopped. I was going to say, `Listen, I'm late for the competition. Give me a ticket, or give me an escort.' ''
Trouble was, once he arrived Johnson practically needed an escort over the bar. Battling himself and the wind from warmups on, Johnson twice had to clear knee-wilting third attempts or be gone.
``The chances of that happening again are pretty low,'' Johnson said. ``I anticipate an entirely different performance. We're not going to play around with third attempts this time.''
Because Sergei Bubka and Okkert Brits didn't advance, the final is different, too, from what people envisioned. That also favors him, Johnson said, because he is back in the familiar position of having jumped higher than most everybody else.
Of the 13 other finalists, only Russia's Igor Trandenkov, with a personal best of 19 feet, 8 3/4 inches, has vaulted higher than Johnson's American record of 19-7 1/2.
``I really only kept up with Bubka and Brits, I thought they'd be the competition,'' Johnson said. ``Now, it's not really as much me looking for someone to beat than it is to better my personal best. If I go out and give the best performance I've ever given, I'll walk away with the gold medal.''
And straight into some morning glory. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS photo
Lawrence Johnson says of his chances in the pole vault final: "If I
go out and give the best performance I've ever given, I'll walk away
with the gold medal." by CNB