THE 1987 PAN AMERICAN GAMES : Notes : Green Requests Independent Test

The lawyer representing Bill Green, the U.S. hammer thrower stripped of his silver medal after a urinalysis showed excessive amounts of the male hormone testosterone, has asked for an independent analysis of Green’s urine sample.

Paul N. McCloskey, the former U.S. Congressman, said the request was made Friday, and he was awaiting a decision.

“Thus far, they seem inclined not to turn it over to us,” McCloskey said by telephone from his office in Palo Alto.

Dr. Ronald Blankenbaker, the Indianapolis organizing committee’s representative to the Pan American Sports Organization medical committee, said such a request is “unusual.”

He said the committee had not discussed the request.

Green, of Torrance, was stripped of his medal when a drug test administered after his competition Aug. 10 showed that he had a ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone of 11.2 to 1. Studies have found a ratio of 1 to 1 in an average male, and levels as high as 2.5 to 1 in extreme cases. Because medical officials wanted to allow room for error, athletes must have a ratio of 6 to 1 to be considered positive.

Testosterone is the natural substance from which strength-enhancing anabolic steroids are derived.

McCloskey said Green’s medical records indicate he might naturally have a higher level of testosterone. He said a previous test showed Green had a ratio of 4 to 1. He said this might mean Green should have been permitted a wider variance in his testosterone level before his test was declared positive.

McCloskey said he had asked Green to submit to a new test.

Vincente Sanchez, the fourth-place finisher in the hammer competition here who had returned home to Cuba, came back and will receive the bronze medal if he passes a drug test.

The chief of Cuba’s 600-member delegation said Friday that his nation’s minister of education and sport will attend Sunday’s closing ceremonies in the Hoosier Dome.

Conrado Martinez, the delgation chief, said Jose Ramon Fernandez, who was also Cuba’s chief of operations during the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion, had secured a U.S. visa and was expected to arrive in Indianapolis this morning. A CIA publication ranking government officials of all nations lists Fernandez as one of eight officials ranked No. 11. The same publication also identifies him as a vice president of Cuba’s Council of Ministers.

Martinez also said at a news conference that the Cuban delegation will attend the closing ceremonies, where the Pan American Games flag will be passed to the Cubans, who will play host to the 1991 Games in Havana. Cuban officials had earlier objected to the presence of a music group, Miami Sound Machine, in the ceremonies. The officials called it a provocation, since members of the group have Cuban exile connections.

“We had expressed some concern to the organizers that some elements might create tension at the ceremonies,” Martinez said. “But when it was explained to us how the spectacle had been designed, we had no objection...we feel the games will be closed very happily.”

Among the leaflets that the Miami-based Cubans for Independence and Democracy want to get into the hands of the Cuban athletes is a leaflet listing the salaries of top Latin American baseball players playing in the United States.

After rounds of compulsory routines and team optionals, Sabrina Mar of Huntington Beach held the points lead going into today’s individual all-around gymnastics competition. Mar, of the SCATS club, had 77.550 points to Kristie Phillips’ 77.475.

Three more U.S. gymnasts-- Kelly Steves-Garrison, Melissa Marlowe and Hope Spivey--were next in the standings before Elsa Chivas of Cuba.

Every ticket has been sold for the all-around session.

The sellout crowd of more than 13,000 got behind Mar’s floor exercise routine, reacting noticeably to her music, Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA.”

Mar said that choice of music is important. “It gives you an edge if the crowd gets up and gets behind you,” she said.

Mar is leading the floor exercise scoring, too.

As for whether the music made a personal statement for her, she said, “It is significant.” Mar, who is of Chinese ancestry, was born in the USA. “When we had our USA-China meet, there were people who thought I had on the wrong sweats.”

USA Amateur Boxing Federation officials were startled to hear U.S. super-heavyweight Riddick Bowe tell reporters Wednesday that he had boxed with a broken right hand in his decision loss to Cuba’s Jorge Gonzales.

He didn’t. After the bout, Bowe was X-rayed at the United States Olympic Committee’s medical facility at the athletes’ village. No fracture showed up in X-rays, according to U.S. Pan Am team head physician William Grana, who called Bowe’s injury a “soft tissue injury.”

Times staff writers Tracy Dodds and Earl Gustkey contributed to this story.