Track and Field : What It Takes to Be a Top Hurdler

American high hurdlers are a quarrelsome lot, seemingly more so than any other athletes in track and field.

Greg Foster and Renaldo Nehemiah used to take digs at one another. Then, when Nehemiah left track to play professional football for the San Francisco 49ers, Foster had center stage by himself for a while.

Tonie Campbell has come along, though, to challenge Foster, and their rivalry became so heated that they had to be separated after a race last Sept. 15 in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The peacemaker? Why, it was Nehemiah, who was making a comeback in the hurdles after leaving pro football.

Campbell, the former USC star, who will be racing against Foster and Nehemiah in the 60-meter hurdles at the Sunkist Invitational Jan. 22 at the Sports Arena, said Tuesday that the nature of the event spurs antagonistic attitudes.

“The problem is that you’re involved in a glamorous event,” Campbell said at a track writers’ luncheon. “We’re not gladiators, and only one person comes out of the ring the victor and gets all the rewards and spoils. And I want it as bad as anyone else.

“Emotions run a little high. It’s a physical event. We have to fight not only ourselves but the hurdles and each other. Arms do fly and things like that and it causes tempers to fly.

“I’m a hothead, and a few of my competitors have admitted to me recently that they’re hotheads. When you put two hotheads together, you usually end up having a boxing match. That’s what kind of happened last year.”

Foster won the 110-meter high hurdles in the World Championships Sept. 3 in Rome. Campbell didn’t compete because he didn’t qualify after hitting a hurdle in the U.S. national championship meet last June in San Jose.

However, eight days after Foster won in Rome, Campbell won the Grand Prix title for the event by beating Foster in Brussels.

Campbell was reportedly irritated that Foster called the Brussels race his first loss of the year, even though he had failed to finish in two other races.

“For him to say he hasn’t lost is a lie,” Campbell said at the time. “If you’re in a race and don’t win, you lose. He knows DNFs (did not finish) aren’t ignored in consideration for the world rankings.

“So whenever he is stressed and someone is coming up on him, he falls. You know that whenever Greg is losing a race, he is going down.”

Foster heard of Campbell’s remarks and, after beating Campbell in a race in Lausanne, reportedly shouted at his rival, “Who’s No. 1? Who’s No. 1?”

That’s when Nehemiah broke up the confrontation.

Without using Foster’s name, Campbell said Tuesday that a world champion admitted to him in Hawaii recently that he was a hothead like himself.

“We resolved some of our differences and we admitted we took it a little bit overboard,” Campbell said. “We need to set a better example for the youth coming up. I don’t think it will happen again soon.”

At least, not until they race again.

Steve Scott has long been regarded as America’s premier miler. But Scott had a sub-par season in 1987 and lost his No. 1 U.S. ranking to Jim Spivey, who finished third in the 1,500 meters at the World Championships.

“Last year was a disappointment for me. Things didn’t go right. The World Championships were more or less a disaster,” said Scott, who finished 12th and last in the 1,500-meter race. “I have since revamped my entire training.”

Scott added that he had been training too hard, not taking a break while depleting all his reserves in the fall and not having enough left for the competitive months in the summer.

“You just can’t tackle training with the same intensity at 31 as you had at 25,” Scott said.

Scott has been consistently successful the last 10 years. He has also had his share of disappointments, such as his lagging effort in Rome and his 10th-place finish in the 1,500 at the 1984 Olympic Games here.

But he said he’s not putting any added pressure on himself while looking ahead to the Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea, in September.

“This year, I’m in a very good position,” he said. “According to people in the press, Jim Spivey is America’s top miler. I’ll just go along for the ride and hopefully surprise a few people at the end.”

Scott will compete in the mile at the Jan. 22 indoor meet against a longtime rival, New Zealand’s John Walker, and Kenya’s Kip Cheruiyot, among others.

Some athletes dream of winning a major championship. Al Joyner, the 1984 Olympic gold medalist in the triple jump, is more specific.

“My plan is to make the (U.S. Olympic) team on July 16,” Joyner said Tuesday. “Then, on Sept. 24 at 12:30 p.m. Al Joyner will win the gold medal and repeat what he did in 1984--and show that it wasn’t a fluke.”

Asked why some people might regard that victory as a fluke, Joyner said: “It has always been in the back of my mind. It has been said I wouldn’t have won it if the Russians were in it, but they’ll be competing in 1988.

“I competed at Seoul in 1985 and I have a vivid picture how that Olympic stadium looks and I also have a vivid picture of how I’ll act when I repeat what I did in 1984.”

Joyner is the brother of Jackie Joyner-Kersee, the world record-holder and world champion in the heptathlon. He is married to Florence Griffith, the silver medalist in the 200 at the 1984 Olympics and again at the World Championships.

“I can’t let two members of my family take all the glory. I have to get some myself,” Joyner said, smiling.

His first order of business, though, is to beat Charlie Simpkins in the triple jump in the Jan. 22 indoor meet.

“I have a grudge against Charlie. He knocked me off the U.S. team that went to Rome,” said Joyner, referring to Simpkins’ third-place finish in the qualifying U.S. national meet.

Are the triple jumpers beginning to be as contentious as the hurdlers?