Track and Field : Games Is the Right Word for Madison Square Garden’s Millrose Event

The Millrose Games, which are supposed to be the crown jewels of the United States indoor track and field season, were an embarrassment to their organizers. Or would disorganizers be more accurate?

Pole vaulter Joe Dial called the New York meet a “three-ring circus.”

That was an insult to three-ring circuses.

The Millrose Games last Friday night at Madison Square Garden were as organized as rush hour in Grand Central Station.

Much already has been said about the pole vault competition, which the Soviet Union’s Sergei Bubka thought was stacked against him in favor of the Americans. Texan Billy Olson won, beating Bubka for the first time in six meetings.

They are scheduled to meet two more times this weekend, Friday night in the Times/GTE Indoor Games at the Forum and Sunday afternoon in the Michelob Invitational at San Diego’s Sports Arena.

But Indiana’s Dave Volz, who finished second in New York with his first 19-foot jump, begged to differ with Bubka. Volz said the Millrose officials were not corrupt.

“Just ignorant,” he said.

Dial, who is from Oklahoma, said the officials were caught up in the Rocky IV, Soviet vs. American hype that preceded the event and didn’t want to be blamed if the competition fizzled. As a result, they awarded extra jumps to Dial and Olson, ruling interference by photographers.

When Bubka threatened to withdraw, they also gave him an extra jump.

Dial said that Olson actually was granted six jumps before he cleared a height, claiming that the Texan ran through the pit twice before attempting his first vault. According to the rules, run-throughs count as jumps.

Dial said he complained but that an official replied: “I had my back turned.”

Olson said he had received permission from the officials for the run-throughs.

“I don’t think the competition was such a farce until Sergei was given his extra jump,” Olson said. “Maybe everybody’s just upset because I won.”

If a high jumper complains in an empty arena, does she make a sound?

While the pole vaulters roared the loudest about the confusion in the Millrose Games, the women high jumpers had more reason to complain. But by the time their competition ended, there was no one at Madison Square Garden to listen.

Because the Soviet pole vaulters, Sergei and brother Vasily, protested that the pole vault pit was not large enough, officials extended it with the addition of the women’s high jump pit.

As a result, the women had to wait until either the pole vault or the men’s high jump ended before they could begin. Both of those competitions lasted until after midnight, which delayed the start of the women’s high jump until 12:20 a.m.

It ended at 1:15 a.m., a meet record.

By then, a capacity crowd of more than 18,000 had dwindled to nothing.

Canadian Debbie Brill won with a jump of 6-4.

The women boarded a plane later Saturday morning for another meet that evening at Hamilton, Ontario, where Brill won again.

Before the Millrose Games, Gwen Torrence, a junior at the University of Georgia, had the fastest time in the world this year in the 60-yard dash.

But she didn’t want the Madison Square Garden crowd to know it.

“I wanted all of the attention to be on Evelyn,” she said of her foremost competitor, Olympic champion Evelyn Ashford.

So she asked her coach to request that the public address announcer not relate her previous best time to the crowd. He complied.

As a result, anyone who was not aware of Torrence was stunned when she beat Ashford, setting a Millrose Games record of 6.57 seconds in the process.

That includes Ashford, who was competing for only the second time since taking a year off to have a baby.

“I’ve never heard of her,” Ashford said of Torrence. “Where’s she from?’

“When you get to be an old veteran, you’ve got to look out for the young whippersnappers. Now that I know who she is, she’d better look out.”

Torrence will have to wait until the outdoor season for another look at Ashford, who is not competing in the final three indoor meets of the winter.

According to a column by Dave Anderson of the New York Times, the Soviet delegation of five athletes, one coach, one director and one interpreter is getting about $8,000 a meet in the United States, and the Romanian delegation of seven athletes and three directors is getting about $7,000 a meet. They are competing in five U.S. meets, including the two this weekend on the West Coast.

The $15,000 promoters are paying for 12 Soviet and Romanian athletes is roughly the same amount they have to pay for one Carl Lewis, Anderson reported.

Track Notes

Tired of negotiating and renegotiating with miler Sydney Maree, Bally Invitational organizers withdrew their invitation to him last Friday, two days before the meet. He is not trusted by many promoters, who apparently believe that he takes their money to run and then doesn’t perform up to his capabilities. He finished eighth in the Millrose mile Friday night. . . . Billy Olson could have helped the Bally Invitational, a struggling meet, by competing against Sergei Bubka. He had a partial commitment to the meet organizers, who had advertised Olson as one of the competitors. On the other hand, he probably did the honorable thing by not appearing. All he had to do to claim a $5,500 appearance fee, about $2,500 higher than his usual fee, was set foot on the track. But he didn’t feel well Sunday morning and realized he probably wouldn’t clear a height even if he did enter the competition. So he didn’t show.

Eamonn Coghlan didn’t lose in the indoor mile for five years before this winter, but he now has lost three times in the event, all of them to another Irishman, Marcus O’Sullivan. “Marcus is at the stage of his career where I was in 1977, when I won at the Millrose Games for the first time,” Coghlan said after finishing second to O’Sullivan Friday night. “You’ll be hearing a lot about him.