Fast Track to Nowhere

By B.J. Phillips

America chooses an Olympic team to sit out the Olympics

The U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials have traditionally been the first step on the road to medaled glory. Newcomers became stars and stars household words during the quadrennial head-to-head competition to select the members of the American Olympic team. In the 1930s, Babe Didrikson and Jesse Owens came to national attention at the Trials, foreshadowing the performances that made the 1932 Los Angeles and 1936 Berlin Games memorable. Last time, a hurdler named Edwin Moses set an American record in the 400-meter hurdles. He went on to etch a world mark at Montreal in 1976 and has since put together a string of 40 consecutive victories.

But in this, the year of the Olympic boycott, the U.S. Track and Field Trials were a fast race to nowhere. For American athletes, the road to Moscow was closed when Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan. Still the Trials went on last week in Eugene, Ore., a pleasant college town that calls itself the track and field capital of the nation. At stake was the somewhat empty designation "Olympian," a set of bright new red, white and blue U.S.A. uniforms for the top three finishers in each event, and an invitation to the White House July 30. Though the U.S. Olympic Committee went to pains to emphasize the importance of the Trials and call attention to a number of international events later this year for the qualifiers, most athletes agreed that an olive wreath by any other name does not smell as sweet. Said Al Oerter, 43, the discus thrower who won gold medals in the 1956, '60, '64, '68 Games and who was trying a comeback after twelve years of retirement: "This is not an Olympic Trials. I can tell because I've been sleeping. At past Trials, I analyzed my technique, thought about it all the time and never got any sleep. Not this year. The intensity isn't there."

The Olympic letdown was obvious from the field of competitors who gathered in Eugene. Entry forms were mailed to 935 qualified athletes. Only 700 showed up to participate. The same number competed in '76, when only 800 athletes were invited. Said Meet Director Bob Newland: "There were 47 men sprinters who were eligible to compete, but only 27 showed up. In '76 we had more than 50. I'm certain that if we'd been going to the Olympics, everyone would have come to take a shot at making the team."

Still, some of those who went put on performances that will long be part of track and field lore. "You've got to remember, these are great athletes," Newland said. "They have their pride." That pride produced ten new Trials records during the first five days of competition, precisely the number of records set during the same period of the 1976 Trials. If no one was falling down to kiss the track after finishing third--as Mike Shine, the 400-meter hurdles silver medalist in 1976, had done when he qualified for the team that year--there were moments of world-class jubilation. Karin Smith, 24, last week's women's javelin champion, danced around the infield, stabbing her fist into the air. Anthony Campbell, 20, who finished third behind heavily favored Renaldo Nehemiah in the 110-meter hurdles, leaped so high for joy that he could have qualified in the high jump.

Madeline Manning, 32, who first won a gold medal in 1968 in the 800 meters, smiled just as broadly as she qualified last week for her fourth Olympics. Sherri Howard, 18--who finished first in the 400 meters while her younger sister Denean, 15, finished third--was elated with the family parlay. They became the first sisters ever qualified to represent the U.S. in the same Olympic event. Observed Sherri: "We've got a long life ahead of us. But the boycott has taken the edge off some of the top sprinters who were there in '76. We'll be back, but a lot of them won't, and I think it hurt them."

How would the U.S. team have fared in Moscow? Predictions have a way of coming apart as runners stumble, discus throwers suffer slipped discs, and pole vaulters cannot rise to the occasion. But there seems little doubt that the U.S. would have continued its domination of men's track events as well as taking several medals in the long jump, discus, shot-put and pole vault. American women rank among the world's fastest in the sprints, but a hamstring injury to Pan Am Games Champion Evelyn Ashford undermined U.S. hopes. Eastern Europeans would, as always, have car ried away most of the medals in distance and field events.

But no one will ever know. The best that American athletes can hope for is a meeting with Moscow medalists during the post-Olympic competition later this summer in Europe. As 800-meter Champion Don Paige told TIME'S Peter Ainslie, "I'll hang my new Olympic team suit in my trophy case and hope that I have a newspaper clipping about how I ran against a Moscow Olympic winner to hang next to it. Then I'll sit down and speculate about how I might have done in the Olympics."

--By B.J. Phillips

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