THE GOODWILL GAMES : Roundup : Two U.S. Boxers Win, but Women’s Volleyball Team Beaten by Soviets

Michael Bent and Arthur Johnson scored opening-match victories to give America’s politically wracked boxing team a boost, but the U.S. women’s volleyball team was defeated by the Soviet Union Friday in the Goodwill Games.

One of eight last-minute substitutes for the U.S. boxers, flyweight Juan Acevedo, lost to North Korea’s Gvanho Chon less than 24 hours after arriving in Moscow from New York and said jet lag had almost as much to do with his loss as the Korean’s fists.

Bent, the U.S. national champion heavyweight, outpointed Bulgaria’s Svilen Rusinov, 3-2, while Johnson, the national flyweight champion, won a unanimous decision over Hungary’s Janos Varadi.

Political and commercial considerations led the U.S. Defense Department last week to ban nine boxers--one Marine and eight soldiers--from competing in the Goodwill Games, and late substitutions had to be found.

On the volleyball court, the powerful serves of Julija Salcevich led the Soviets to a 15-12, 11-15, 15-4, 15-4 victory over the United States, the silver medalist in the 1984 Olympics.

The lone remaining member of that squad, Paula Weishoff, had to leave the match late in the first set with an ankle injury.

The Americans trailed, 11-9, when Weishoff was injured. The Americans rallied to tie it, 12-12, but the Soviets then scored the last three points for the set.

In the second set, the U.S. fared better, holding serve and fending off Salcevich’s blasts, but in the third set, the Soviets sped to a 14-3 lead and were never in trouble.

They split the first six points of the final set before the Soviets rolled off four in a row and never again trailed.

The Soviets will play Peru for the gold medal today. Peru beat Japan, 15-9, 12-15, 14-16, 16-14, 15-11. The United States and Japan, the third-place team in the 1984 Los Angeles Games, will play for the bronze.

Friday was not a good day for the Americans, who for the first time in the first eight days of competition failed to win a gold medal. In fact, the U.S. medal haul for the day totaled just one.

Soviet athletes, meanwhile, acquired two golds. Nikolai Brozhzhin won the men’s three-meter springboard diving, edging former U.S. collegiate platform champion Kent Ferguson, and Viktor Manakov won the men’s 50-kilometer individual cycling points race.

In the men’s sprint cycling, U.S. Olympic champion Mark Gorski was beaten twice--by Mikhael Hubner of East Germany in the semifinals and by Gary Neiwand of Australia for the bronze medal. Lutz Hesslich of East Germany, the 1980 Olympic champion and twice the world champion, beat Hubner in both heats to win the gold medal.

The Soviets now have 45 gold medals and 125 overall, while the United States has 31 golds among 88 medals. East Germany is next with 7 golds and a total of 20.

Moscow suffered through a second consecutive day of rain and high winds, and similar weather at Tallinn on the Gulf of Finland forced officials to postpone the opening ceremonies in yachting. The ceremony was reset for Monday, two days after the scheduled first race.

Meanwhile, a financial analyst in Atlanta, Lee Wilder, predicted that Turner Broadcasting System, which is co-promoting the Games with the Soviet sports ministry, would lose $20 million on the event, twice the loss Turner, TBS president, projected just last month.

“The only good financial news about the Goodwill Games is that they won’t happen again for four years,” Wilder said.

Turner said he was not worried, and that the event’s contribution to world peace overshadows financial considerations.

And Marat Gramov, chairman of the Soviet Sports Committee, said Friday that attendance and interest at the Games is increasing in the Soviet Union.

Gramov said attendance was low during the first couple of days at track and field, the blue ribbon event of the Games, but increased the final two days, reaching a high of 67,000 Wednesday night.

“I think attendance is picking up at other sports, too,” he said during a news conference aboard the cruise ship, the Stepan Razin. “We had 100,000 applications for one of the (two) motoball games.”

The Soviet Union plays an all-European team in motoball, a version of soccer played with motor vehicles.