New Jersey Marathon : Trip to Seoul Is on Line for U.S. Runners Today

More than 100 Americans will line up here today to compete for three spots on the U.S. Olympic marathon team, and unlike previous years, there are no clear favorites.

“It’s wide open,” said Pat Petersen, of Ronkonkoma, N.Y., who hopes to be one of the chosen three.

“It’s going to be an exciting race; there’s a lot of talent out there,” said Don Norman, another competitor. “But it’s anybody’s race.”

The 26.2-mile race, part of the New Jersey Waterfront Marathon, is scheduled to start at 10 a.m., PDT, and will offer $50,000 to the first-place runner, $25,000 to the second finisher and $20,000 to the third. The money runs 20 places deep, with $15,000 to the fourth finisher, who will serve as an Olympic alternate at Seoul, South Korea, in September, and $100 for 20th place.

Besides Petersen, whose best performance has been 2 hours 11 minutes 23 seconds, and Norman, whose best is 2:11:08, competitors include Pete Pfitzinger, the surprising winner of the 1984 trial who ran 11th in the Olympic marathon in Los Angeles; Bill Donakowski of El Cerrito, Calif., whose best marathon performance is 2:10:41 and who won the Waterfront Marathon in 1986; Greg Meyer, the 1983 winner of the Boston Marathon; Dave Gordon, who finished fourth in the 1984 Olympic trial; Marty Froelick, who finished fifth in the 1986 Waterfront Marathon; Mark Curp, whose best is 2:11:45; Don Janicki, whose best is 2:11:16; and Paul Gompers, who has run a 2:11:38.

The two other members of the 1984 team, Alberto Salazar and John Tuttle, are not scheduled to compete. Salazar, who has been injured for most of the last four years, has gone into semi-retirement and is operating a restaurant in Eugene, Ore., where he lives. Tuttle, who dropped out of the Olympic marathon after 12 miles, has passed on the marathon trial to concentrate on the 10,000-meter trial later this year.

“I don’t think the times will be good,” Pfitzinger predicted. “It’s a slow course. The biggest factor is the wind. There’s a head wind the first 15 miles, then a tail wind on the way back. The last mile is back into a head wind. It’s quite hilly from mile 4 to 15. There are more ups than downs.”

Janicki ran the race last year and finished fourth. “It seemed like it was tough last year,” he said. “I think it’s definitely a course where it helps people to have run it before.”

Donakowski, who trains on hills in Berkeley, agreed. “I think I’ll be at my best advantage there,” he said.

Petersen said he wasn’t thinking about the competition--that it mattered little how the others have run in the past.

“I don’t go into the race, or any big race, worrying about this person or that person,” he said. “When I get to a big race like this, it all depends on how I feel that day. I go at the pace I want to do--the heck what the others are doing. Some of these guys have run better marathons than I have, then they’ve come back six months later and bombed out.”

Norman, who hasn’t run a marathon in a year, said he believed he was going to run the best race of his life, even if he didn’t make the team.

“It’s a scary situation, the way I feel,” he said. “No one has given me a vote (as a favorite) and I think that’s just great. There’s no pressure on me. This is the first time I’ve felt really good. I’m going in to run a fast time and whatever happens, happens.”