U.S. TRACK AND FIELD TRIALS : Joyner-Kersee Cries at Brother’s Failure

It should have been one of the happiest days of Jackie Joyner-Kersee’s life.

For the third time since 1986, she had set the world record in the heptathlon. Not only that, she had become the first person to surpass 7,200 points in the seven events, and if she had really wanted to, no one doubted that she could have scored 7,300.

Later, while resting on a table in the interview room and receiving a massage from her physical therapist, she began to describe her elation to reporters, photographers and television cameramen.

But then a voice came over the public address system at the Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis Stadium. The man said he was about to introduce the 1988 U.S. Olympic triple jump team, the men who had finished first, second and third in the just-concluded competition.

Joyner-Kersee stopped in mid-sentence.

She had to hear this.

“WILLIE BANKS!”

“CHARLIE SIMPKINS!”

Joyner-Kersee closed her eyes and clinched her fists. Knowing her, she probably said a quick prayer.

“ROBERT CANNON!”

No Al Joyner.

His sister looked helpless. She needed a private moment, but she was in a very public place. All she wanted to do was bury her face in the table and cry.

So she did.

“Excuse me,” she said a few moments later, trying to regain her composure.

But she wasn’t ready. She cried some more.

Al Joyner won the gold medal in the triple jump at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, but he never established himself as a dominant figure in the event, at least not in the public’s eye. He almost made the U.S. team for the World Championships last year, but he injured himself in the process and stayed behind to prepare for this year. He believed he had something to prove.

The fact that he couldn’t do it, finishing fifth in a competititon Saturday to determine a three-man team, brought bitter tears to eyes that had been accustomed to crying for joy. Not only did his sister set a world record on the second day of the U.S. Olympic trials, but so did his wife. Florence Griffith-Joyner ran a remarkable 10.49 seconds in the quarterfinals of the women’s 100 meters, breaking Evelyn Ashford’s four-year old record of 10.76.

Bob Kersee, the UCLA women’s coach, is married to Jackie Joyner-Kersee. He coaches her, as he does Florence Griffith-Joyner. They, along with Al Joyner, work out every day at Drake Stadium, except when they are competing.

When Kersee was asked Saturday whether Griffith-Joyner would be able to contain her enthusiasm after setting the world record and focus on her semfinal and final in the 100 today, his answer demonstrated how close their family has become.

“Tonight, I’m sure she’s a wife, just like Jackie is a sister,” he said. “Her world record and Jackie’s world record . . . in terms of a celebration, it’s canceled. Her husband didn’t make the Olympic team. We’re going to be disappointed for him tonight.

“When your husband or your brother is down, you’ve got to be down, too.”

Al Joyner tried to act as if he weren’t down.

He said he is going to compete next week in the 110-meter hurdles, although he is given little chance of finishing among the top three in that event, either.

“I’m not through yet,” he said.

But even if he does not make the team, he said he will be going to Seoul to provide moral support for his family.

“I’ve got to go now,” he said. “I got my gold medal in 1984, but my sister and my wife got silvers. I’ve got to help them get golds.”

In his sister’s case, that is almost a given.

While she talks about scoring 7,300 or even 7,400 points in Seoul, no one else has ever scored more than 7,000.

You might think she would be complacent. Instead, she said she is more motivated than ever for the Olympics after finishing second in 1984.

“I’ll be very hungry in Seoul,” she said.

Florence Griffith-Joyner is less of a sure thing.

She has been one of the nation’s best sprinters for eight years. But in the important meets, she usually finished second. She was the silver medalist in the 200 at the 1984 Olympics and the silver medalist in the 200 at the 1987 World Championships in Rome.

You could have called her fashionably late because if anything else about her stood out before this year, it was her wardrobe. Last year, in the preliminary rounds at Rome, she became the first runner to wear a full-length bodysuit, including a hood, that made her look more like a speedskater than a track and field athlete.

In the first round Saturday morning, she wore a day-glo green outfit that covered one leg and left the other bare. In the afternoon, she wore the same style outfit, but the color was violet.

“Flourescent Flo,” she is called.

Her fingernails also have provoked extraordinary interest. They were four inches long at the 1984 Olympics, and while they are shorter now, she had them painted orange with black stripes Saturday.

A brief biography: Griffith-Joyner, 27, was an outstanding runner at Jordan High School in Los Angeles, enrolled at Cal State Northridge in 1979 and stopped competing. Kersee found her and took her with him to UCLA, and she became an NCAA champion and an Olympian.

But she retired from the sport in 1986 and started work as a secretary.

“She was about 60 pounds overweight,” Kersee said with a laugh.

When she decided she was serious about returning to the sport last year, she called Kersee.

In her third 100 of the year Saturday morning, she ran 10.60 with a heavy wind behind her. A few hours later, she ran 10.49 with no wind registered.

As usual, she seemed subdued afterward.

But Kersee was flabbergasted.

“You can’t even imagine a 10.49,” he said. “I knew she was capable of breaking the world record. I figured she could even run a 10.69. But I don’t know where those other two-tenths of a second went.”