THE SEOUL GAMES / DAY 8 : Notes : Two U.S. Swimmers Arrested After Theft

Two U.S. double gold medal-winning swimmers were taken into custody by police and held for questioning for more than 8 hours following the alleged theft of an item from a local hotel bar.

Doug Gjertsen of Atlanta and Troy Dalbey of San Jose, were apprehended in the Olympic Athletes Village just before dawn by city police, according to Bob Condron, a U.S. Olympic Committee spokesman.

No charges were filed and Gjertsen and Dalbey were released.

The removal of the item, variously described as a plaster lion’s head, a table top and a concrete block, was just a “a fooling-around type of thing,” Condron said.

U.S. Olympic Committee attorney Ron Rowan, who is representing the swimmers, denied that the pair had attempted to steal a statue. He said they had taken a piece of paving stone which they intended to return.

Hours before the incident, Dalbey swam the second leg of the 400-meter freestyle relay final, which the U.S. team won in world-record time. Gjertsen swam a leg in the 400 freestyle relay preliminaries and thus also got a gold medal.

Both Gjertsen and Dalbey earlier won gold on the world record-setting 800-meter freestyle relay squad.

Tennis player Pam Shriver is one of the leading quote machines of the Olympics. Shriver, always witty, has an entirely new audience of media people here. And, as she has done for years with writers on the tennis tour, she’s keeping them entertained. Some samples from a press conference Friday:

--”Most of the floor below us (in the village dormitories) is filled with track and field people. I’m hoping some of their speed comes up through the floors and suddenly I’ll find myself very agile and quick on the court.”

--”I haven’t gone shopping yet. I think the best show in town is the Olympics, and I go to lots of other events. But, like any other red-blooded female, I’m sure I’ll get there.”

--”The courts are so beautiful here, because they have so much space and there are no commercials here, no banners at the back.”

--”I’ll tell you, the Koreans around here who want autographs are really aggressive about getting them. I think all Koreans, if they played tennis, would be serve-and-volleyers for sure.”

No room service here: Forsaking luxury hotels and room service, the wealthy stars of tennis seem to enjoy being treated like ordinary people here.

The Games have led to the unlikely sight of Chris Evert lining up in the athletes’ cafeteria, Stefan Edberg sharing a room and Steffi Graf doing her laundry with the rest of the West German team.

“It is a real learning experience for me,” said Evert, who for nearly 16 years has been used to the wealthy life at the top end of the professional tennis circuit. “It is great. Everyone is equal here--no one is on a pedestal.”

Edberg, the top seed in the men’s tournament, is sharing living quarters in the athletes’ village with fellow Swedish players Anders Jarryd and Caterina Lindqvist and the team coaches.

“I can’t expect to have room service here but the apartments are quite nice actually,” said the world’s third-best player. “It is very different to what we are used to.”

Norway’s Grete Waitz, eight-time New York City Marathon champion and runnerup to Joan Benoit Samuelson in the 1984 Summer Olympics, dropped out of the 26.2 mile marathon Friday after 17 miles.

She was among the leaders until a short time before that, but an official from Norway’s Olympic Committee said that Waitz didn’t believe that she could be competitive until the finish. She underwent arthroscopic knee surgery last month and had curtailed her training runs significantly.

“She wanted to try. She felt she might could have finished eight or ninth, or 10th, but it was not possible without causing further damage to herself.”

It’s a scoop: In the category of objective journalism, Seoul newspapers have occasionally fallen a bit short. The Korea Times reported it may have uncovered the reason why countryman Byun Jong Il lost his controversial decision to Bulgaria’s Alexander Hristov Thursday and sat in the ring for an Olympic-record 67 minutes:

“The referee, apparently favoring the Bulgarian boxer, forced Byun to lose his attack rhythm by stopping the fight and serving cautions four times in the last two rounds to Byun’s foe . . .

“Behind the incident is the fact that the chief of the Seoul Olympic Boxing referees is a Bulgarian.”

Add boxing: One U.S. boxing official was slightly injured during the free-for-all that broke out after Byun Jong Il lost the decision, when he saved his boss from getting hit.

Stan Hamilton of Knoxville, Tenn., who is working the referee/judge assignment desk at the tournament, saved the chief of the International Amateur Boxing Assn. referee and judges commission from a whack on the head during the fighting, but sustained a badly cut hand in the process.

“One of the Korean coaches picked up one of the plastic boxes that holds the Ping Pong balls we use to randomly choose referees and judges for each bout,” Hamilton said.

“I saw he was going to bring it down on Emil Jetchev’s head, and I put up my hand to stop him. The box has jagged edges and it cut me up pretty good.”

Hamilton suffered cuts on three fingers, and the back of his hand.

Anthony Hembrick could have used this guy: Boston Globe sportswriter Kevin Dupont told this story about his ride from the fencing venue at Seoul’s Olympic Park to the main press center Thursday:

“I came out of fencing in a big hurry, and I ran to the cab stand and there were about 35 people in line.

“I didn’t have time for that, so I just ran out into traffic. There were cabs everywhere. I got right in front of this one guy, forced him to stop, and he said to me: ‘Where you go?’

“ ‘MPC,’ I told him.

“ ‘Yes, I take,’ he said.

“So I get in the back seat, put on my Walkman, listen to a little music, and start day-dreaming. Next thing I know, we’d been going about 10 minutes, and we’re on streets I hadn’t seen before. I was so tired, I didn’t say anything.

“Finally, we pull up in front of the MPC. I get out and ask him: ‘How much?’

“He just smiled, and said: ‘No pay.’

“Then I took a good look at the car. It wasn’t a cab. It was just some guy who gave me a ride.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Tracy Dodds and Earl Gustkey, and Times sports editor Bill Dwyre.