OLYMPICS ‘88: A PREVIEW : Eastern Bloc Athletes Will Make Games Competitive

Soviet television has 28 correspondents here for the Summer Olympics, which is more than twice as many as it had in Washington for the Ronald Reagan-Mikhail Gorbachev summit. As popular as Gorbachev is at home, Sergei Bubka is more so.

Although the Soviet media is now permitted to report bad news, they will be hard-pressed to find it in Seoul. The Soviet Union is expected to win more gold medals than any other country, perhaps as many as 50.

That is one more than the Soviets won in Montreal 12 years ago, the last time all three athletic superpowers, including the United States and East Germany, came together for the Summer Games.

East Germany won 40 gold medals in Montreal, six more than the United States. The prediction is that the Americans will reverse that this time by almost the same count, but it won’t surprise anyone if they finish third again.

Most U.S. athletes say that they can live with that. At least, they know that the value of the medals they do win won’t be devalued because of a boycott by Soviet Bloc countries.

“The 1984 Olympics mean a lot to me,” said swimmer Mary T. Meagher, who won three gold medals in Los Angeles. “There was a little empty feeling, not having them there. It gives me more emphasis for now.”

You want emphasis?

Listen to UCLA women’s track and field Coach Bob Kersee, who has trained seven members of the U.S. team.

“We couldn’t go (to Moscow) in ‘80, and they didn’t show in ‘84,” he said. “Let’s get together in Seoul and get it on.”

A sport-by-sport look at the Games:

ARCHERY

MEN: In a rivalry that extended beyond the competition, Darrell Pace of Hamilton, Ohio and Rick McKinney of Gilbert, Ariz. dominated men’s archery for years in the United States. Neither would allow the other to shoot at an apple on his head, although both could split it if they were so inclined.

Pace was the 1976 and 1984 Olympic champion, and McKinney won the silver medal in 1984.

But Jay Barrs of Mesa, Ariz. emerged last year as the nation’s best, winning two gold medals at the Pan American Games along with a silver and a bronze at the World Championships.

Any of the three could win an individual medal, although the Soviet Union’s Vladimir Esheev, 1987 world champion, is the favorite. Together, the Americans should contend for the team championship along with archers from the Soviet Union, East Germany, West Germany, South Korea and China.

WOMEN: Three years ago, the best U.S. woman archer was devastating the 12-and-under division in her home state of Utah. Now, Denise Parker, 14, appears ready to take on the world’s best.

Even though the United States is not expected to challenge the Soviet Union, South Korea, China and West Germany for a team medal, Parker, the youngest member of the U.S. Olympic team, is an individual medal contender.

BASKETBALL

MEN: You could put together a medal-contending team with the players that U.S. Coach John Thompson of Georgetown University has cut.

Is this team so good that it couldn’t find a place for point guards Pooh Richardson, David Rivers or Rod Strickland? Or off guards Rex Chapman or Todd Lichti? How about forwards Danny Ferry or Sean Elliott?

Well, it is a pretty good team. It couldn’t be otherwise with players such as Danny Manning, J.R. Reid, Hersey Hawkins and David Robinson, although Robinson, the former Navy center, has yet to find his land legs.

But is it good enough to beat the Soviets?

Even without their injured franchise center, 7-3 Arvidas Sabonis, the Soviets looked good recently in a three-game series against the Atlanta Hawks. OK, so it’s out of season, and the Hawks aren’t in highlight film form, but it’s still an NBA team.

The United States and the Soviets are in different brackets, but if they reach the championship rounds, they could meet for the first time in the Olympics since 1972, when the Soviets won on a controversial basket at the end.

Teams most likely to spoil the possibility of a rematch are Yugoslavia and Brazil, which upset the United States in the 1987 Pan American Games final.

WOMEN: Until 1986, the Soviets had never lost a game in a major tournament, either the Olympics or the World Championships. They were the real Big Red Machine.

But the United States, which won the gold medal in 1984 when the Soviets boycotted, beat them in the 1986 Goodwill Games in Moscow, and then, to prove it wasn’t an upset, beat them a month later, again in Moscow, at the World Championships.

Kay Yow of North Carolina State, who coached the United States to first place in both of those 1986 tournaments, liked that team so much that she selected 9 of the 12 players for this year’s team.

Most notable among the missing is Cheryl Miller, the four-time All-American from USC who suffered a knee injury last year and hadn’t recovered enough to impress Yow that she could still contribute at the international level.

The team’s new leader is guard Teresa Edwards, an all-around player who can score and shut down the opposition on defense. She and 6-8 center Anne Donovan, formerly of Old Dominion, are the two players returning from the 1984 Olympics. Edwards’ former Georgia teammate, forward Katrina McClain, led the team in scoring and rebounding last summer as it won the Pan American Games.

Since 1986, the Soviets have fired their coaching staff and retired their older veterans, including 6-11 center Iuliyana Semenova, and gone to a younger, faster team that will try to run and gun with the United States. Other medal contenders are Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czechoslovakia and South Korea.

BOXING

In the 1986 World Championships at Reno, probably the strongest amateur competition since the 1976 Summer Olympics, a young, inexperienced U.S. team unexpectedly won three gold medals.

Cuba won seven, including one by three-time Olympic champion Teofilo Stevenson in what proved to be his farewell to the sport. He announced his retirement earlier this year.

U.S. Amateur Boxing Federation officials say they would be delighted to win three gold medals at the Olympics, even though Cuba is boycotting.

One reason for low expectations is the strength of Soviet, East German and South Korean boxers.

Another is politics. The United States no longer has clout on the International Amateur Boxing Assn. referees and judges committee. Rolly Schwartz of Cincinnati was chairman of that committee in 1984, when the United States won gold medals in 9 of 12 weight classes. “I really think the judging will be stacked against us this time,” Schwartz said. “If every close decision in Seoul goes against us, don’t be surprised.”

The United States has gold-medal contenders in the three heaviest weight classes; Andrew Maynard of Fort Carson, Colo. (178 pounds), Ray Mercer of Jacksonville, Fla. (201) and Riddick Bowe of New York (201+).

Among other medal contenders are Kelcie Banks of Chicago (125) and Ken Gould of Rockford, Ill. (147), who were world champions in 1986. Banks was the only U.S. gold medalist at last summer’s Pan American Games, which were dominated by the Cubans.

CANOE/KAYAK

MEN: Originally from Homer, Mich., where pigs outnumber humans, 3-1, Greg Barton became the first U.S. kayaker ever to win a medal in the men’s sprints with his third-place 1,000 meters finish in 1984. He could become the first to win a gold medal.

Now based in Newport Beach, Barton is favored to win the 1,000 meters. He became the first American to win an Olympic-distance event in a world championship, finishing first at 1,000 meters in 1987.

Barton could win a second medal in the K-2 1,000 meters with Norman Bellingham of Rockville, Md. Bellingham also is a medal contender in the K-1 500 meters. Terry Kent, perhaps the best team boat paddler the United States has ever produced, Mike Harbold, Terry White and Mike Herber, who wrestled a bear and lived to give him a rematch, could challenge in the K-4 1,000 meters.

WOMEN: Honolulu native Traci Phillips is well known in the islands as Hawaii’s three-time racquetball champion and four-time champion of an annual 40.8 mile race. She now is making a name for herself internationally as the United States’ best woman kayaker, even though she has been competing for only three years.

Phillips, who lives in Newport Beach, could make the finals in the K-1 500 meters or the K-2 500 meters, in which she pairs with Sheila Conover of Costa Mesa. But Eastern Bloc kayakers are expected to win most of the medals.

CYCLING

MEN: The U.S. will be without 1984 gold medal winners Steve Hegg and Mark Gorski. Hegg was disqualified from the team last week after testing positive for caffeine, a banned substance, and Gorski failed to qualify. But even if they had competed, it would have been difficult for them to duplicate their performances in Seoul. The teams from the Soviet Union and East Germany will see to that.

Ken Carpenter of La Mesa has been cycling for only three years, but the Pan American gold medal winner is expected to contend for a medal in the sprint competition. Carpenter defeated Gorski in the U.S. Olympic trials.

WOMEN: Jeannie Longo of France, long regarded as the world’s best woman road racer with her domination of the Tour de France, is the favorite in the road race competition. She will be challenged by Inga Benedict of Reno, who finished 21st in 1984.

In the only other women’s cycling event, Connie Paraskevin-Young of Indianapolis, a three-time world champion, has a good chance to win the sprint competition. But she will have to hold off former world champions Christa Rothenburger-Luding of East Germany and Erika Salumiaee of the Soviet Union. Rothenburger-Luding won the 1,000-meter race in Olympic speed skating at Calgary this year.

DIVING

MEN: Greg Louganis of Malibu is still the world’s best diver. He won gold medals in the springboard and platform events in 1984 and swept the last two World Championships. But he is not the cinch that he was in Los Angeles.

Louganis, 28, will be challenged on the springboard by China’s Tan Liangde, who finished second to the American in the 1984 Olympics and the 1986 World Championships, and on the platform by Tong Hui, the 1987 World Cup champion, and Li Kongzheng, who won a bronze medal in 1984. Li, who trains at the University of Texas, is the only Chinese diver to have beaten Louganis.

WOMEN: Chinese women have dominated the sport since 1985, and, considering the youth of their leading competitors, don’t figure to relinquish their hold for several more years.

Gao Min, 18, won gold medals at the 1986 World Championships and the 1987 World Cup on the springboard. Her 582.90 is the highest score ever for a woman in a 10-dive springboard competition. Her primary competition is expected to come from compatriot Li Qing, who beat Gao in an international meet in Seoul in June.

Xu Yanmei and Chen Lin, both 17, have dominated on the platform for the last two years, although a third Chinese, Guan Xueqing has recently emerged as a challenger.

The most precocious platform diver, however, is the Soviet Union’s Elena Miroshina, 14, who last year, at 4-8 and 70 pounds, set a world record of 508.65 points.

Both U.S. silver medalists in 1984, Kelly McCormick of Columbus, Ohio in the springboard and Michele Mitchell of Boca Raton, Fla. in the platform, return.

EQUESTRIAN

Katherine Burdsall of North Salem, N.Y. leads the United States into show jumping, which the country traditionally dominates, on the event’s first $1 million horse, The Natural, a Hanoverian gelding.

Her primary competition could come from another New Yorker. Joe Fargis of Southampton, N.Y. won two gold medals in 1984, one in the individual competition and one in the team competition. He will try to defend his championship on his 1984 mount, Touch of Class, along with an Irish bred mare, Mill Pearl.

The United States won the 1984 gold medal in the three-day event but has suffered setbacks since then. The team didn’t even finish the 1986 World Championships in Australia because of a lengthy horse quarantine. Great Britain excels in this event. West Germany, Denmark and Switzerland are the medal favorites in dressage.

FENCING

MEN: Only the 35th athlete, the second since 1968, to make the U.S. Olympic team in two sports, Rob Stull of Austin, Tex. will compete in fencing (epee) and modern pentathlon. Other two-sport athletes include Gen. George Patton (fencing and modern pentathlon in 1912) and Johnny Weismuller (swimming and water polo in 1924).

Stull should be satisfied with that distinction. A medal for him, or for any American, in either sport is not likely. Until 1984, when Peter Westbrook of New York won a bronze in the men’s sabre, the United States had not won a fencing medal for 24 years.

Westbrook is not expected to repeat. Not only will competition come this time from the strong West Germans, French and Italians, but also from Eastern Bloc powers such as the Soviets, Hungarians and East Germans.

WOMEN: Westbrook was upset in the duel for the sabre gold medal at the Pan American Games last summer by Canadian Jean-Paul Banos, who is married to the United States’ best female fencer, Caitlin Bilodeaux of Concord, Mass.

Bilodeaux matched her husband’s gold, becoming the first U.S. woman to win a Pan American Games fencing medal with her victory in the foil competition. But the Olympic field is much stronger with the inclusion of the Romanians, Hungarians, Chinese and West Germans.

FIELD HOCKEY

MEN: India has won the gold medal eight times and was unbeaten over 30 matches between 1928 and 1960. Its primary competition has come from Pakistan, which has won three gold medals, most recently in 1984. But Australia is the favorite, having won the most recent World Cup. The U.S. men failed to qualify.

WOMEN: The Netherlands, which has won every major international tournament except for one in the last eight years, should easily defend its 1984 Olympic championship. The fifth-seeded United States won the bronze medal in 1984 but has only three players returning, including two-time Olympians Beth Beglin of Upper Saddle River, N.J., and Sheryl Johnson of Cupertino, Calif.

GYMNASTICS

MEN: One of the most remarkable stories of this Olympics is of the world-class gymnast who was involved in a terrible accident, heard that he might lose his leg but struggled back to the top of his sport. No, it isn’t Tim Daggett, who, despite a courageous effort to overcome a broken leg suffered at last year’s World Championships, couldn’t make the U.S. team.

It is the Soviet Union’s Dimitri Bilozerchev, who in 1983, at 16, became the youngest men’s world champion ever, then almost had his career ended two years later in an automobile accident that left his leg broken in 40 places.

While doctors doubted that he would walk again, much less compete, he proved them wrong, winning the all-around title and medals in four of the six individual events at the 1987 World Championships in Rotterdam.

He is expected to lead the Soviets to the Olympic team championship, even though they lost Yuri Korolev, who finished second in the all-around at the World Championships, to an Achilles tendon injury in July.

Other teams expected to contend for medals are China, East Germany, Bulgaria and Japan. The United States was ninth in the 1987 World Championships, and that was with two of their best, Daggett and national champion Dan Hayden, who are injured.

Charles Lakes of Chatsworth will become the first black to compete for the United States in Olympic gymnastics. Ron Gallimore was a member of the 1980 team that boycotted.

WOMEN: This year’s Olga, or Nadia, or Mary Lou, depending on your reference point, is likely to be Romania’s Aurelia Dobre, who, along with her teammates, has somehow been able to prosper without the coaching of Bela Karolyi.

In leading Romania to the team title at the 1987 World Championships, Dobre won gold medals in the individual all-around and balance beam and bronze medals in the vault and floor exercise. Her teammate, Daniela Silivas, finished third in the all-around and tied for first in the uneven bars and floor exercise.

The Soviets, favored at the World Championships, are looking to heal their wounded egos, and the woman to do it for them may be Elena Shushunova, who was second in the all-around at Rotterdam, won the vault and tied for first in the floor exercise. Her best friend, Oksana Omelianchik, who shared the 1985 all-around world championship with Shushunova, did not place among the top six at the USSR Cup in August but is expected to be added to the team.

The United States has been turmoil over its coaching situation. Naturally, Karolyi, the temperamental Romanian, was in the middle of it. But it appears as if a compromise has been reached that will allow him and the other personal coaches to take turns on the floor during competition. Three of the six women on the team are Karolyi Kids, including the best medal hope, national champion Phoebe Mills of Northfield, Ill.

GYMNASTICS/RHYTHMIC

All you need to know about U.S. chances is that Diane Simpson of Evanston, Ill., had the country’s highest finish ever in the World Championship last year. She was 22nd.

The other member of the U.S. team is Michelle Berube of Chicago who retired for 3 1/2 years after the 1984 Olympics but returned this year to finish second in the Olympic trials.

The three leading contenders are Bulgarians, including 1987 world champion Bianka Panova, 18, although Soviets such as Marina Lobach and Anna Kotchneva could win medals.

JUDO

Invented by the Japanese, the sport is dominated by Asian judoists. From the seven weight classes, four gold medalists are expected to come from Japan and one from South Korea.

But there also is a U.S. favorite. Mike Swain, who works for a San Jose computer company, became the first American to win a world championship last year with his victory in the 156-pound division.

After winning a 1984 silver medal in the 189-pound division, Bob Berland of Chicago has become a heavyweight (209+ pounds) and defeated highly regarded Leo White in the Olympic trials. Another U.S. medal contender is Kevin Asano from San Jose, who upset 1984 bronze medalist Ed Liddie at the trials in the 133-pound division.

MODERN PENTATHLON

In 1979, Bob Nieman of San Antonio became the first and, so far, only American to win a world championship in the sport. After failing to qualify in 1984 for the U.S. team, Nieman retired. But he returned this year and was a surprise winner at the national championships, earning a berth on his third Olympic team at 40.

Without Nieman in Los Angeles, the United States won a silver medal in the team competition, a result that is not likely to be duplicated. The gold medalist, Italy, remains strong, but, more significantly, the Soviets and Hungarians are competing this time.

ROWING

MEN: Even though the United States has not won an Olympic gold medal in the men’s eight since 1964, its improvement over the last three years has been apparent. After a third-place finish in 1985 and a second in 1986 at the world championships, the U.S. eight won last year.

Of the eight events, that is the only one in which the United States is favored, although its uncoxed four won the world championship in 1986, finished third in 1987 and should challenge for an Olympic medal.

Andy Sudduth of Boston, a member of the men’s eight that won a silver medal in Los Angeles, is a medal contender in the single sculls, but the competition includes Finland’s Pertti Karppinen, attempting to win his fourth gold medal in the event, 1987 world champion Thomas Lange of East Germany and West Germany’s Peter-Michael Kolbe.

WOMEN: At last year’s World Championships, dominated by the Romanians, the United States won a silver medal in the eights and a bronze medal in the double sculls. The double sculls team of Anne Marden and Barbara Kirch didn’t make it through the U.S. trials this year, losing to Cathy Tippett of Irvine and Monica Havelka of Lomita.

A few months ago, neither would have been given much chance to be in Seoul. Tippett was recovering after a two-year battle with the Epstein-Barr virus, and Havelka had two broken elbows after tripping over a dog while jogging.

While Marden, who is from Concord, Mass., but lives in London, didn’t make the team with her partner, she will represent the United States in the single sculls, in which Bulgaria’s Magdalena Georgieva is the favorite.

SHOOTING

MEN: For the United States, not much has changed in shooting. It is strong in shotgun events--trap and skeet--and weak in running game. The United States will be sending a veteran team with a number of familar names for those who followed the 1984 Games.

Returning in skeet is perhaps the world’s best, Matt Dryke, the 1984 Olympic champion. Dryke, from Sequim, Wash., is a two-time world champion. Joining the strong U.S. shotgun team will be Dan Carlisle, a bronze medalist in trap in 1984, who will compete in trap and skeet.

Expect a strong showing from the Eastern Bloc teams, particularly the Soviet Union and East Germany.

WOMEN: In hopes of starting the Games on a positive note for the host country, the first gold medal will go to the winner of the women’s air rifle, an event in which South Korea’s Kang He Ja is a stronger contender. Bulgaria’s Vessela Letscheva is the world champion in the event, but Kang, called the “biggest hidden card” of all Korean athletes, is not far behind. The International Shooting Union, the sport’s world governing body, changed the schedule so that the women’s air rifle would end at 8 a.m. Sept. 18 as a favor to the Koreans.

The Soviet Union is expected to dominate.

SOCCER

Of the four groups, each consisting of four countries, the United States drew the most challenging--Argentina, the Soviet Union and host South Korea are the other three teams--and is not expected to be one of the two that advances to the next round. Still, it says something for the improvement of the United States that it emerged from 112 nations attempting to qualify and earned a place in the 16-team tournament.

Of the 20 players on the U.S. team, 17 are professionals, including defenseman Paul Caligiuri, formerly of UCLA, who plays for Meppen in West Germany and midfielder Brent Goulet of Tacoma, who plays for Bournemouth in England. The captain is midfielder Rick Davis, also the captain of the 1984 Olympic team, who plays for Tacoma of the Major Indoor Soccer League.

The team is coached by Lothar Osiander, who is taking time away from his regular job as a waiter in San Francisco.

The only players not eligible are those who competed in a previous World Cup for European and South American countries. As a result, most of the world’s best players are excluded. But Brazil, Argentina, and the Soviet Union still should be strong.

SWIMMING

MEN: As much as he appreciates the compliment, Matt Biondi of Moraga, Calif. believes that anyone who compares him to Mark Spitz is all-wet.

It’s easy to see why someone would make the comparison. Spitz swam seven events during the 1972 Olympics, winning gold medals in each. Biondi probably will swim seven in Seoul. Except for one, the events are even the same. Spitz was in the 200 butterfuly, and Biondi is in the 50 freestyle instead.

” . . . If he is able to take it one event at a time, he could conceivably do it,” said U.S. Coach Richard Quick. “If you look at each of his events, you have to say he has a chance in each one.”

But Biondi doesn’t think it’s likely. After all, Spitz had world records in all four of his individual events. Biondi is the world record-holder only in one of his four individual events, the 100 freestyle.

“The reality of it is that I have to have a magical performance every day to win,” he said. “It might happen once in my life. I don’t see it happening over there in eight days.”

In the 50 freestyle, Tom Jager of Topanga Canyon has beaten Biondi 10 times in 14 meetings. “He may be the best swimmer in the world, but I’m faster,” Jager said.

In the 200 freestyle and the 100 butterfly, Biondi will have to beat West Germany’s Michael (The Albatross) Gross, who won two golds and two silvers in Los Angeles. The world record-holder in the 200 freestyle and the 200 butterfly, he probably will swim six events.

Others who could win more than one individual gold medal include the Soviet Union’s Igor Poliansky in the 100 and 200 backstrokes and Hungary’s Tamas Darnyi in the 200 and 400 individual medleys.

WOMEN: The last time the United States competed against East Germany in the Olympics, the East Germans won 11 of the 13 gold medals and 6 silver medals.

The East Germans claim they don’t expect a repeat of the 1976 Olympics, but one wonders if they are just being modest. Entering the year, they were ranked first in the world in 9 of 13 individual events. Leading the team in Seoul are Kristin Otto in the 100 freestyle, Heike Friedrich in the 200 and 400 freestyles and Silke Horner in the 100 and 200 breaststrokes.

“One must be realistic,” said East German swimming official Wolfgang Richter. “There is more competition now from emerging countries like China and individuals like Sylvia Poll of Costa Rica. Titles will come more expensively than they did in Montreal.”

Poll, the Pan American Games sensation who could contend for medals in the 200 freestyle and the 100 backstroke, is the lone American from south of Tijuana expected to make an impact. Both of her parents are German.

As for the North Americans, Placentia’s Janet Evans, 17, who doesn’t weigh 100 pounds even soaking wet, has three world records, including two in events (400 and 800 freestyles) that will be contested in Seoul and recently broke the U.S. record in the 400 individual medley.

Evans has no fear of the East Germans.

“I don’t care what country they’re from or how big they are, when it comes time to swim, they’re just competitors,” he said.

Madame Butterfly, Mary T. Meagher of Louisville, Ky., will try to defend the 100 and 200 butterfly titles that she won in 1984.

SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMING

In 1984, the first year the sport was in the Olympics, Tracie Ruiz- Conforto of Redmond, Wash., won two gold medals, finishing first in the solo competition and pairing with Candy Costie-Burke to finish first in the duet.

Ruiz-Conforto gained 15 pounds, married a former Penn State linebacker and retired in 1985, enabling Canada’s Carolyn Waldo to emerge as the world’s best.

But Ruiz-Conforto returned last year. Although she finished second to Waldo at the 1987 World Championships, Ruiz-Conforto beat the Canadian in their most recent competition, a pre-Olympics meet this summer in Seoul.

Even if Waldo doesn’t win the solo competition, she likely will return home with a gold medal. She and Michelle Cameron are the duet favorites. The Josephson twins, Karenand Sarah, of Bristol, Conn. are solid medal contenders.

TABLE TENNIS

Insook Bhushan of Aurora, Colo. returns to her native Seoul to compete in women’s singles and doubles for the country she adopted in 1980, the United States.

Even though Bhushan trained in Colorado Springs with one of China’s best men, Chen Yinghua, none of the three Americans entered are expected to win finish among the top three in any of the four events, men’s and women’s singles and doubles, as table tennis becomes a medal sport for the first time.

China could win all four gold medals, although the South Koreans are not far behind in skill and should be boosted by the home crowds.

TEAM HANDBALL

MEN: The United States tied Cuba with two seconds remaining in regulation play at the Pan American Games last summer, then won in overtime to qualify for the Olympics.

But the U.S. Team Handball Federation wasn’t satisfied with simply earning an invitation to Seoul, subsequently hiring Yugoslavian Branislav Pokrajec to coach the team. Pokrajec, generally regarded as the world’s best coach, led Yugoslavia to the gold medal in 1984.

His successor is expected to have that honor this time as Yugoslavia is favored over Hungary, East Germany, the Soviet Union and Sweden. But the United States is now considered a legitimate top 15 team.

WOMEN: The U.S. women, who also qualified for the Olympics with a dramatic championship game victory at the Pan American Games, are considered a top 10 team and are capable of finishing higher.

In a recent game in Czechoslovakia, after trailing by eight at halftime, they tied the Czechs, who, along with the Soviet Union, Norway and Yugoslavia, are considered a medal contender.

TENNIS

It could be that the same man who won in 1984, when tennis was a demonstration sport and the field was limited to players 21-years-old or younger, will win this time. That’s Sweden’s Stefan Edberg. The same goes for the women, whose champion in 1984 was West Germany’s Steffi Graf. Both won at Wimbledon this year.

There even could be a rematch of the Wimbledon final on the men’s side, where Edberg’s chief competition is expected to come from compatriot Mats Wilander. Americans entered in singles are Brad Gilbert and Tim Mayotte.

But the same is not possible on the women’s side, where Martina Navratilova declined an opportunity to play for the United States because the Olympics do not count in the computer rankings and because she did not want to live in the athletes’ village instead of a luxury hotel. Such is the state of the game as it returns to the Olympics as a medal sport for the first time since 1924.

Chris Evert is expected to meet Graf in the final. Pam Shriver also will represent the United States in singles and will team with Zina Garrison in doubles. Ken Flach and Robert Seguso are medal favorites in men’s doubles.

TRACK AND FIELD

MEN: Of the 11 U.S. medalists at the World Championships last summer in Rome, 5 will not be going to Seoul because of either injuries or failure to qualify for the team. Still, Coach Stan Huntsman said he might have the best U.S. team ever.

That includes gold-medal contenders Carl Lewis in the 100, 200 and long jump, Roger Kingdom in the 110-meter hurdles, Edwin Moses in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles, Butch Reynolds and Danny Everett in the 400, Willie Banks in the triple jump and 400 and 1,600-meter relay teams that will not lose unless they decide to dribble the baton.

Lewis, looking forward to his 100 showdown against Canadian Ben Johnson, still has not decided whether he will attempt to duplicate his four gold-medal performance of 1984. There is a scheduling conflict between the 200 and the long jump, but even if that can be resolved to his liking, he may opt out of the 400-meter relay.

Moses will try to win his third gold medal. His competition likely will come from Andre Phillips and Kevin Young of the United States and Harald Schmid of West Germany.

Also trying to win a third gold medal, unprecedented in the decathlon, is Great Britain’s Daley Thompson. Another Brit in the spotlight will be Steve Cram, who, it appears, finally will run against the other great middle-distance runner of this decade, Morocco’s Said Aouita, in the 1,500.

No one in this sport, or any other, is more of a lock for a gold medal than Soviet pole vaulter Sergei Bubka, who may use this occasion to become the first man over 20 feet.

WOMEN: Of East Germany’s 31 medals at the World Championships last summer, its women won 23, including six golds. It appeared earlier this year that the East Germans might win even more Olympic medals, but that was before the U.S. trials, where the women, for perhaps the first time ever, made more headlines than the men.

That was due primarily to Florence Griffith-Joyner’s remarkable world-record time of 10.49 in the 100 and her U.S. record in the 200 of 21.77.

Is she for real? We will find out in Seoul, where she will meet East Germans Silke Gladisch Moeller, world champion last year in the 100 and 200, and former world record-holder Marlies Gohr.

Griffith-Joyner might also have to contend with East German Heike Drechsler in the 100 and the 200, although the 1983 world champion and 1987 runnerup in the long jump says that event is her first priority.

If Drechsler is not the world’s best woman athlete, then Jackie Joyner-Kersee is. The only question in the heptathlon is by how much she will break her own world record. But although she won the long jump at the World Championships, she will face much stiffer competition in a healthy Dreschler and world record-holder Galina Chistyakova of the Soviet Union.

Mary Slaney doesn’t have Zola Budd to kick her around anymore, but a gold medal may still elude Slaney. The Soviet Union’s Tatiana Samolenko won the 1,500 and the 3,000 at the World Championships.

VOLLEYBALL

MEN: In 1986, the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) named Karch Kiraly of Santa Barbara the best player in the world. Although it was an award never presented before, and it may not be presented again, FIVB felt that Kiraly deserved special recognition.

All Kiraly and his teammates, most notably Steve Timmons of Newport Beach, Craig Buck of Tarzana and Dave Saunders of Pacific Palisades, have done is win the sport’s triple crown, the 1984 Olympics, the 1985 World Cup and the 1986 World Championships.

Even so, a second straight gold medal for the United States is not a foregone conclusion. The Soviets have beaten the U.S. twice in the last year, most recently at the Savvin Cup last month in the Soviet Union. That was retribution for the U.S. victory over the Soviets in June at the Forum.

Cuba might be the world’s third best team but will miss this tournament because of the boycott, leaving France, Brazil and Bulgaria as the other medal contenders.

WOMEN: Because the Cubans, considered the world’s best team, will not be in Seoul, China should defend the gold medal it won in 1984, when it beat the U.S. in the championship game.

The rebuilding U.S. team, led by Caren Kemner of Quincy, Ill. and Lakewood, Calif. teen-ager Keba Phipps, has improved within the last year and should finish among the top six. Besides China, the leading medal contenders are Peru, Brazil and the Soviet Union.

WATER POLO

U.S. captain Terry Schroeder of Santa Barbara is one of Southern California’s best known Olympic althletes, although he might not be recognized with his trunks on. He modeled for the nude statue outside the Coliseum.

Schroeder and his teammates should be known for their athletic skills as well. Six of the 13 players who were on the team that won a silver medal in 1984 have returned.

Their performance in Los Angeles was no fluke. Although the Soviets and Hungarians, traditionally two of the strongest teams, didn’t compete, the United States tied another power, Yugoslavia, in the championship game and lost the gold medal only because of goal differential in the tournament.

Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union are considered the world’s best teams, but the United States has proved it is capable of beating anyone and should contend for a medal. Other contenders include West Germany and Hungary. Spain also has an outside chance for a medal because of Manuel Estiarte, who is the Magic Johnson or Wayne Gretzky of water polo.

WEIGHTLIFTING

The sport is so dominated by the Eastern Bloc that even the best lifter from the other side of the Iron Curtain, Naim Suleymanoglu in the 132-pound division, came to Turkey in 1986 after defecting from Bulgaria.

Similarly, the United States’ best lifter, Roberto Urrutia of Hollywood, Fla. in the 165-pound division, defected from Cuba. He was eighth in the World Championships last year, the best finish for an American. Mario Martinez of South San Francisco, a 1984 silver-medalist, was 10th in the super heavyweight division.

Of the 10 weight-class overall world champions, there were five Bulgarians, four Soviets and one Hungarian. Besides Suleymanoglu, the only lifter considered to have a chance to break the Eastern Bloc hold on gold medals is He Zhuoqiang of China in the 114-pound division.

WRESTLING

FREESTYLE: After winning eight medals, including two golds, at the 1987 World Championships, the United States is threatening Soviet dominance. Coach Jim Humphrey of the University of Indiana has called this the best U.S. team in history, predicting as many as 10 medals.

“You look at the U.S. boxing team at Montreal (1976) and the gymnastics team in L.A. (1984),” he said. “This team has the potential to make wrestling a more popular sport. We’re going to make people aware of us.”

John Smith of Del City, Okla. in the 136.5-pound division and Mark Schultz of Palo Alto in the 180.5-pound division are reigning world champions. Bruce Baumgartner of Edinboro, Pa. in the 286-pound division also is an Olympic favorite despite settling for a bronze at the World Championships after an upset loss in the first round.

Baumgartner and Schultz, 1984 champions, will try to become only the second and third U.S. freestyle wrestlers to win consecutive gold medals.

GRECO-ROMAN: If you can’t beat them, hire one of their coaches. Pavel Katsen immigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States in 1979, earned his citizenhip in 1984 and became coach of the Greco-Roman team.

His presence here has helped the U.S. wrestlers more than it has hurt the Soviets, who are expected to win gold medals in 5 of the 10 weight classes.

The best hope for the United States is Dennis Koslowski of St. Paul, Minn. in the 220-pound division.

YACHTING

The United States won either gold or silver medals in all seven classes in 1984, but, even though another class has been added, appears to be a solid contender in only four--star, soling, finn and 470 women.

In the past, women have competed against the men in all classes. But the women will have their own 470 race this time. Allison Jolley of Valencia will skipper the boat.