U.S. Track and Field Trials Notes : They’re Keeping Fast Company in the 400 Club

Until this week, an athlete earned entrance into a rather exclusive club by running faster than 45 seconds in the 400 meters.

But now the membership is going to have to hold its meetings in a convention hall.

In the second round Sunday, 11 runners ran faster than 45 seconds, including Kansas State’s Jeff Reynolds, whose 44.98 was not good enough for him to advance to the semifinals.

Of 16 semifinalists Monday night, 9 ran faster than 45 seconds, and again one of them, Darrell Robinson of Long Beach, did not advance despite running 44.99.

“I think this is the best group of quartermilers America has ever had,” said U.S. men’s Coach Stan Huntsman, who is from the University of Texas.

That is not too bold a statement.

Not that he’s incapable of making bold statements.

“I will predict there will be a world record in the 400 (tonight),” he said.

Of the eight runners in the final, the three most likely to break Lee Evans’ 20-year-old record of 43.86 are UCLA freshman Steve Lewis, who ran the second-fastest time ever at sea level Monday (44.11), UCLA junior Danny Everett, who ran second to Lewis in 44.32, and Butch Reynolds of Ohio, who won his semifinal heat in 44.65.

“Let’s not limit it to those three,” Huntsman said. “I’ve seen four or five athletes (in the event) who could win the gold medal in Seoul.”

Asked about Lewis, who is only 19, Huntsman complimented John Smith, who coaches sprinters at UCLA.

“I think we’re all shocked (by Lewis’ times),” Huntsman said. “To look at him run, somebody’s done a great job of teaching him how to run the 400 meters.”

Smith wasn’t too bad a quartermiler himself. The 44.5 he ran in 1971 is still a world record for 440 yards.

Huntsman on Edwin Moses:

“He’s a freak of nature. His mind and willingness to work and determination, completely disregarding the technical know-how he has, he’s the equivalent of an Albert Einstein on another level.”

As a dual citizen, Sandra Farmer-Patrick had her choice this year of running for the United States or Jamaica.

She finished fourth at the 1987 World Championships in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles for Jamaica, but she decided two weeks before the U.S. trials to compete for her adopted country.

That was considered fortunate for the United States because there is no one else in the country capable of competing with Eastern Bloc athletes in the event.

But the United States’ luck, and Farmer-Patrick’s, turned Monday.

The start of the intermediate hurdles semifinals was postponed for 35 minutes because of rain. Before the delay, Farmer-Patrick was assigned lane five. But after the delay, because Lane 1 was flooded, she was assigned Lane 6.

She went over the first two hurdles in Lane 6.

But then she became confused and went over the next two, or maybe even the next three, in Lane 5.

She returned to Lane 6 when she heard one of the other runners, Schwonda Williams, call out, “Hey, Sandy, you’re in my lane.”

Farmer-Patrick won the heat in 55.19, and Williams was second in 55.31. Both, of course, qualified for today’s final.

But then Farmer-Patrick was disqualified for running out of her lane.

Even though Williams told the jury of appeals that her progress in lane five was not impeded, Farmer-Patrick lost her protest.

Farmer-Patrick said she plans to appeal again to head referee John Chaplin. There are eight runners in the final, but it is a nine-lane track.

“I’m going to ask him to put me in Lane 9,” she said. “They probably won’t do it. It doesn’t matter whether they put me on the Olympic team. I just want to run.

“I forfeited the Jamaican Olympic team to compete for the United States. Now this thing happens.”

Her husband, David Patrick, missed a berth on the Olympic team by three-hundredths of a second, finishing fourth in the men’s 400-meter intermediate hurdles. Thinking he had finished third and made the team, he almost completed a victory lap before he heard the first three finishers announced over the public address system.

As required by international rules, Florence Griffith-Joyner underwent a drug test after she set a world record of 10.49 in the second round of the 100 meters Saturday.

But just in case that time isn’t ratified as a record for one reason or another by the International Amateur Athletic Federation--there has been unsubstantiated speculation that the wind gauge malfunctioned during the race--she was tested again after she ran 10.61 Sunday in the final.

She had three times during the weekend better than the previous world record of 10.76 by Evelyn Ashford.

An official of The Athletics Congress, which governs track and field in the United States, said “one or two” athletes tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs during the national championships last month at Tampa, Fla.

But because of appeals, he said he could not elaborate.

He declined to say whether they are competing in the trials.

Dr. Robert Voy, chief medical officer of the United States Olympic Committee, said last year that he found it difficult to believe that TAC announced no positive drug tests after the 1987 national championships at San Jose. Voy is a credible source on the matter because he administered the tests for the USOC.

Berny Wagner said Monday that there were three positives at San Jose.

But he said one of them was overturned on an appeal.

He said the other two were related to the use of ephedrine, a stimulant commonly found in over-the-counter cold medications, and were dismissed by the IAAF, the world governing body for track and field.

“We’re doing the best job we can,” Wagner said. “We can’t do the things people in some other countries do because of our legal system. Perhaps we should try sometime and take our lumps. We’d like to look for a favorable legal climate and test the water. We know there is use of performance- enhancing substances.”

Wagner also expressed displeasure with Los Angeles promoter Al Franken, who informed athletes before the June 5 Pepsi Invitational at UCLA that the meet had been randomly selected by TAC officials for drug testing. As a result, so many discus throwers and shotputters withdrew that Franken had to cancel the events.

“We should consider sanctions against promoters for informing athletes of drug testing,” Wagner said. “There was some discussion about that after what happened at the Pepsi meet.”