Olympians Coming to L.A. Again : Athletes Will Get Clothes, Briefings for Korea Journey

Under festive federalist battle flags of aqua and magenta, they mustered here by the thousands in 1984.

Four years later, out of a dinky hotel meeting room--legal capacity 52--done up with brown corkboards and Burgundy ballroom chairs, the Olympians are here laying plans once more.

Another 16 days in L.A., another run of grueling events: Sweat suit packing. Inseam chain-stitching. Chopsticks briefing. Foreign exchanging.

The U.S. Olympic Committee’s processing center here gives to the nation’s Olympic athletes what a diving board provides to Greg Louganis: a good solid bounce into their jump across the Pacific to the Summer Games in Seoul.

Staging Area

This is the place where the USOC will check up, check off, size up, wise up and dress up the nearly 1,000 athletes, coaches, trainers and staff members heading west, dispatching them from their native soil with new clothes, clean bills of health, gentle drillings on Korean social niceties and a videotaped blessing from Ronald Reagan.

“In my mind, this really sets a tone for any Olympic team--how they get sent off,” said USOC Games Director Greg Harney, the man who fills the roles of general and quartermaster at the processing center.

For the U.S. Olympic support staff, Harney said, “This is like our gold medal effort. If we know we can take a worry away from an athlete--what pillow they’ll sleep on, or if they’ll have enough socks when they get there--that’s as rewarding as anything.”

The first team of 20 tae kwon do competitors arrives this afternoon; the last ones--table tennis, synchronized swimming, archery--are due Sept. 9.

U.S. Expectations

In their 36 to 48 hours in Los Angeles, athletes will be briefed by Olympic officials and medical staff on “what we expect of them”--in short, a cram course in Olympic deportment, to become not merely individual competitors, Harney said, but “Olympians. . . . We treat Beth Beglin of field hockey the same way as Carl Lewis--they’re all part of our family.”

While they are here, athletes are invited to show the flag as celebrity guests of Disneyland (a quid pro quo courtesy; for nine days, Disneyland will give the USOC $3 from each admission ticket sold).

They will be briefed, too, by State Department and Olympic staff on the Korean political situation, cultural manners and social gaffes. (“Good conversation subjects: Korea’s cultural heritage and scenic beauty, sports . . . and your host’s children. Bad conversation subjects: domestic policies, communism, Japan . . . and your male host’s wife.”)

“We’re going to tell our kids to go over there, be patient . . . they’re great hosts, don’t act like the Ugly American,” Harney said.

There will be no dearth of reading material for the flight across the international dateline. Each athlete receives booklets on athletic history and ethics, and a team handbook apprising them of time and temperature equivalents, how to say it in Korean (and how to count it, up to 100 million), and--the Olympics’ hovering incubus since Munich--the 15 rules on what to do if one is taken hostage (“Be polite and think immediately that the stay may be long. . . . Do not get too close personally to the hostage takers”).

On a happier note, the free red and blue flight bags will also be stuffed like Christmas stockings with $200 pocket money and enough donated sundries, like toothpaste, hair dryers and cameras, to last until the 1992 Games.

“They could literally show up here (in L.A.) and not have a stitch of clothing or luggage . . . and survive in Seoul,” Harney boasted.

“Well, not quite,” countered team services chairman Peter E. Lippett. “They only get one pair of underwear.”

Sponsors’ Shoes

Last week, seven trucks showed up in Los Angeles and unloaded the contents of sponsor Adidas’ San Jose warehouse.

By this afternoon, athletes steering loaned Vons shopping carts will hit the center’s eight clothing stations, collecting from volunteer former Olympians quantities of team socks, belts, shorts, jeans, parade gear, shirts, jackets, shoes, the official sweat suit they are commanded to wear at all award ceremonies and press conferences, and the suitcases to hold it all.

If the clothes don’t hold the athletes, it’s across the hall to the vast fitting room and Danny the tailor--Danny Scelza, Adidas’ head pattern maker and tailor--to make it all fit. Piece of cake, said Danny, who did it at the Winter Olympics in Calgary. “Their posture is so good, you can put anything on ‘em and it’ll look great.”

Now, about the parade gear, emerging as the biggest couture secret since Dior’s “New Look” collection.

Before the 1984 Games, they threw sheets over mannequins wearing model parade gear so newsmen wouldn’t reveal the surprise too soon. Maybe that was a mistake. Let it be said only that the sweat suits in which U.S. athletes appeared at the opening ceremonies in 1984 were not universally popular.

Top Secret

So Lippett and a colleague designed this year’s garb, and athletes are under “strict instructions” to keep the wraps under wraps until Sept. 17. Harney, who made a little grimace of distaste when the ’84 parade ensemble was mentioned, did promise that these clothes have “a little more professional appeal.”

The other big secret at the processing center: where it is.

Some at the USOC, in the interests of privacy and safety, said they would just as soon have reporters say only that the processing center is located in an “airport-area hotel.”

No problem.

But the other guest of honor at today’s opening press conference, besides Mayor Tom Bradley, is an official corporate sponsor, hotel magnate Barron Hilton, a gentleman who would probably not be presenting the USOC with a $1-million donation if the Olympians were all putting up at, shall we say, the Marriott.