PAN AMERICAN GAMES : Roundup : Stewart Sprints 100 Meters in 9.89 : His Wind-Aided Time Would Have Been World Record

Jamaica’s Raymond Stewart, the NCAA champion, ran the 100 meters in 9.89 seconds, four-hundredths of a second under the world record, in the Pan American Games Sunday, but an aiding wind will prevent the time from counting as a record.

In the same race, a semifinal, Mark Witherspoon, the U.S. champion, suffered a pulled right hamstring and strained right wrist and probably will miss the remainder of the games, including tonight’s 100 final.

Stewart’s time was the third-fastest 100 under all conditions. It has been bettered only by a 9.87 by William Snoddy of the United States in 1978 and a 9.88 by James Sanford, also of the United States, in 1980. Like Stewart’s race, the times by Snoddy and Sanford were wind-aided.

The wind reading on Stewart was 4.2 meters per seconds, well over the allowable of 2 meters per second for record purposes. The wind during Snoddy’s race was 11.2 meters per second, and for Sanford, it was 2.3.

The world record is 9.93, by Calvin Smith of the United States in 1983.

“I didn’t know I was running that fast,” said Stewart, who will be going into his senior year at Texas Christian. “My main objective was just to try and qualify for the final.”

Stewart’s fastest legal clocking is 10.12. He also has run a wind-aided 9.99.

Witherspoon, meanwhile, finished second in 9.91, equaling the fifth-best time ever, but in leaning for the finish line, he suffered the hamstring injury.

“I felt something in my leg go,” he said tearfully before being taken to the athletes’ village for treatment.

“I started to lean to try and ease the pressure. I felt it before the lean, then I lost my balance.”

Witherspoon, who suffered the wrist injury when he tumbled to the track, also said he had felt a twinge in both hamstrings before Sunday’s first round of the 100.

Still, he won his heat in a wind-aided 10.24.

The other men’s semifinal and the two women’s semifinals also were fast, but also were wind-aided.

Cuba’s Leandro Penalver, the men’s defending champion, took his semifinal in 10.00, edging countryman Andres Simon, second in 10.04. The wind was 6.0 meters per second.

Gail Devers of the United States won the first women’s semifinal in 10.85, with an aiding wind of 4.7, and countrywoman Diane Williams took the other semifinal in 10.94, with a wind of 3.7.

Earlier, Ivo Rodrigues, a 28-year-old Brazilian, overcame muggy conditions in winning the marathon.

Rodrigues ran a steady, consistent race that began in 75-degree temperature and 91% humidity at 7 a.m. at Fort Benjamin Harrison and ended in the Indiana University Track Stadium.

He was timed in 2:20:13 for the 26-mile, 385-yard race in beating runner-up Ronald Lanzoni of Costa Rica by about 100 meters.

Lanzoni finished in 2:20:39, and was followed by Puerto Rico’s Jorge Gonzalez, the defending champion, in 2:21:14, and Steve Benson of the United States in 2:23:52.

Ric Sayre, the other U.S. entrant in the 15-man field, dropped out near the 18 1/2-mile mark because of an aching left Achilles’ tendon.

In the woman’s marathon, run simultaneously with the men’s race, Maricarmen Cardenas of Mexico took the gold medal in 2:52:06.

Cardenas was followed by Debbie Warner of the United States in 2:54:49, Maribel Durruty of Cuba 2:56:21 and Kathy Molitor of the U.S. in 2:59:58.

Only seven other women competed.

Norman Bellingham of Rockville, Md., became the first medal winner, taking the 500-meter singles kayak race. Bellingham, a member of the national team, then combined with Greg Barton of Newport Beach to win the 1,000 doubles, took his medals and headed for the World Championships in West Germany.

“We thought it would be important to be here, to put a good show in, it being the first time in the Pan Am Games,” Bellingham said.

Other U.S. winners in 500-meter canoe-kayak events were Jim Terrell of Milford, Ohio, in the canoe singles event; Traci Phillips of Honolulu in the women’s kayak singles; Mike Herbert of Rogers, Ark., and 1984 Olympian Terry Kent of Rochester, N.Y., in two-man kayak; Shirley Dery-Batlik, of Costa Mesa, and Sheila Conover, of Newport Beach, in two-woman kayak.

American winners in the 1,000-meter events were Barton, a 1984 Olympic bronze medalist, in the kayak singles; Bruce Merritt of Indianapolis in the canoe singles; Phillips, Dery-Batlik, Conover and JoJo Toeppner in the four-woman kayak; Curt Bader of Riviera, Ariz., Michael Harbold, Honolulu, ’84 Olympian Terry White of Peru, Vt., and Herbert in the four-man kayak.

Rebecca Twigg-Whitehead of Seattle won the first woman’s cycling medal in Pan Am Games history, breaking away from the field at the start and taking the 57-kilometer individual road race by 3:23 over teammate Inga Benedict. Twigg-Whitehead, a 1984 Olympic silver medalist in the event, Benedict, of Reno, Nev., and Kathrin Tobin of Ketchum, Idaho, finished 1-2-3. But a pre-race decision that no country could sweep the medals meant Tobin did not get the bronze, which went to fourth-place finisher Sara Louise Neil of Canada.

Defending champion Rosendo Ramos of Mexico won his second straight men’s individual road race.