THE 1984 OLYMPIC GAMES 202 Carl Lewis Made Only a Cameo Appearance in the Long Jump
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
THE 1984 OLYMPIC GAMES 202 Carl Lewis made only a cameo appearance in the long jump. He raced down TRACK AND the runway once, leaped a couple of inches beyond 27 feet, far enough to qualify comfortably for the final, then left the Coliseum to rest on, and for, FIELD his laurels. Edwin Moses, a graduate of Morehouse University with a degree in physics, settled for a costarring role in the 400-meter hurdles. He did the physical work. He won the event for the 105th straight time, a flawless victory that was never in doubt; he broke 48 seconds for the 28th time, a feat the rest of the world had accomplished only five times; and he ran only a tenth of a second slower than he ran in 1976 when, at the age of 20, he won the gold medal in Montreal. He joined Paavo Nurmi in history, the only runners to win the same individual Olympic event twice—eight years apart. Danny Harris, an American teenager, came in second, and Harald Schmid, a West German veteran, the last man to defeat Moses, in 1977, finished third. Moses costarred not with his rivals, but with his lovely West German wife, Myrella. She did the emotional work. As the race approached, and the tele- vision camera zoomed in on her, she displayed every nuance of feeling from anxiety to anguish. She cried. She trembled. She buried her face in her hands. Myrella knew, and she showed, much more than he did, how much the race meant to her husband. "This one was for my dad, who passed away in December," Moses said after his victory. Then he and his wife and his mother all shed tears, their arms engulfing each other. Ed Burke, who carried the American flag in the opening parade, refused to play the tragic role in the hammer throw. His comeback ended when he failed to qualify for the final, but Burke saw the bright side. "I tried," the 44-year-old Olympian said. "I got out there and tried. The only people who have anything to be ashamed of are the people who don't try." Tom Petranoff tried, too, but the former world-record holder in the javelin also failed to qualify for his final. "I don't have any excuses," the American said. For the first time in twenty years, but the sixth time in Olympic history, a Finn, Arto Haerkoenen, won the event. Arto Haerkoenen revives Finland's traditional domination of the javelin throw..