athletics - LA84 Foundation

Jamaica and Kriss Akabusi of Briton, who was
sixth in Seoul.
Julius Kariuki was prevented by illness
from defending his Olympic 3000m steeplechase
title, but the Kenyan runners have such
an inexhaustible wealth of talent they had no
problems in an event in which they have won
four golds and three silvers in four Games
since 1968. In Barcelona, the only question
was which of the three finalists would win
what, the 1990 world junior champion
Mathew Birir taking the gold ahead of Patrick
Sang and William Mutwol, almost five seconds
ahead of the nearest contender, the Italian
Alessandro Lambruschini, who had to
make do with the same fourth place, perhaps
the cruellest, that he had in Seoul.
Daniel Plaza, a native of Catalonia, won
the first-ever Spanish medal in athletics in the
20m walk. There could have been two, had
his team-mate Valenti Massana not been too
eager, disqualified after 19kms after three
warnings for running not walking. The Canadian
Guillaume Leblanc was second and two
Italians third and fourth, Giovanni De Benedictis
and Maurizio Damilano, who moved
down from his bronze medal position in
Seoul. The Russian Andrei Perlov won the
50km walk in 3h 50’13, Carlos Mercenario
Carbajal of Mexico finishing two minutes
later for the silver, in front of the 1988 runnerup,
Ronald Weigel of Germany.
Both relays went to the USA teams, in
world record times. In the 4 x 100 m, Mike
Marsh, Leroy Burrell, Dennis Mitchell and
Carl Lewis took a tenth of a second off the
USA’s mark in the 1991 World Championships.
The last world record set in Mexico in
1968, also by a USA team, fell by a full half
second to Andrew Valmon, Quincy Watts,
Michael Johnson and Steve Lewis in the 4 x
400 m.
Javier Sotomayor of Cuba was well off
his world record form, 2.44m, in Barcelona,
clearing the same 2.34m as the next four athletes,
but adding the Olympic title to his CV
for being the first to clear it at the first attempt,
no-one managing 2.37m. Patrik Sjoeberg,
joint third in Seoul, took silver with one
miss, and the next three shared the bronze
because of failures at earlier heights.
The wind puffed away a world record in
the triple jump, when it was measured at
0.1m per second over the 2.0 limit but the
American Mike Conley made up for a gold
*4 x 400 m
1. USA
Andrew Valmon
Quincy Watts
Michael D. Johnson
Steve Lewis
2. CUB
Lazaro Martinez Despaigne
Hector Herrera Ortiz
Norberto Tellez Santana
Roberto Hernandez Prendes
NWR 2’55"74
2’59"51
Passing the baton.
3. GBR
Roger Black
David Allan Grindley
Kriss Akabusi
John Paul Lyndon Regis
4. BRA
5. NGR
6. ITA
7. TRI
8. KEN
2’59"73
3’01"61
3’01"71
3’02"18
3’03"31
AB
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