Bruce Jenner Track and Field Meet : With Help From Wind, Powell Leaps 28-0 3/4

Mike Powell joined an exclusive club Saturday at the Bruce Jenner Bud Light track and field meet at San Jose City College--but his membership is tainted.

Powell, the former UCLA star and 1988 Olympic silver medalist in the long jump, leaped 28 feet 3/4 of an inch with a new technique.

However, he was assisted by an aiding wind of 4.22 meters per second, a factor that doesn’t legitimize him as a 28-foot long jumper.

Powell isn’t, concerned, though. He reasons that his new technique--a double hitch kick instead of just hanging in the air--could lead to a world record.

Powell isn’t shooting for just any record. He’s aiming for the most prestigious record in the books: Bob Beamon’s 29-2 1/2 jump at high altitude in the 1968 Olympic Games at Mexico City.

The record has withstood countless assaults by Carl Lewis, recognized as the world’s greatest long jumper with his long unbeaten streak and two Olympic gold medals in the event.

“My mind is free and open. I’m not putting any limits on myself,” said Powell in reference to Beamon’s record.

Powell said the double hitch kick is like riding a bicycle in the air and he has been using the technique for only a week after studying films of Lewis and Larry Myricks, the United States’ premier long jumpers. They are legal 28-foot long jumpers along with Beamon, and Lutz Dombrowski and Robert Emmiyan of the Soviet Union.

“It’s easier, more of a natural motion,” said Powell of his technique. “Now 27-10 (his previous best) is nothing to sneeze at, but I want to be in the same category as Carl and Larry. I’m not being boastful, but if I get the technique down I can get the world record.”

Myricks finished second to Powell with a wind-aided jump of 27-7 1/4. He barely had time to warm up as a cab driver took him to San Jose State, instead of San Jose City College, the site of the meet.

Wind was a factor on a clear, warm day as most events were affected by swirling gusts.

However, wind is not an illegal factor in the javelin throw and Japan’s Kasuhiro Mizoguchi took advantage of it. He got off a throw of 287 feet 5 inches, which is only two inches short of the world record established by Czechoslovakia’s Jan Zelezny in 1987.

The javelin has been literally a restructured event, however, since 1986 when the instrument was changed aerodynamically so it wouldn’t fly as far. The change was made because of the fear of a javelin injuring a spectator.

The “old” javelin record was 343-10, set by East Germany’s Uwe Hohn in 1984. Before that, Tom Petranoff held the record at 327-2. So Mizoguchi’s throw with the altered javelin pales by comparison.

There were come creditable achievements on a balmy day and some slightly disappointing performances.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee, the Olympic gold medalist in the heptathlon and long jump, is now concentrating on the 400-meter hurdles, a race in which she has had only one competition since 1985 when she was at UCLA.

Her form seemed ragged and she chopped her stride, but she won in the pedestrian time of 57.15.

“From the second hurdle on I was on the wrong leg,” Joyner-Kersee said of her alternating leg style in the race. “But I’m in better shape than I thought I was. Bobby said that I can go three or four seconds faster.”

She was referring to her husband-coach, Bob Kersee, who also coaches the UCLA women’s track team.

“Jackie never got into her alternating patterns,” Kersee said, “but by July I think she can run 54.1, or 54.2 and break the American record.”

Judi Brown King is the U.S. record-holder at 54.23.

Joyner-Kersee ran the race Saturday on talent. The form, she hopes, will come later.

Dawn Sowell of Louisiana State, who is expected to be the sprint star at next week’s National Collegiate Athletic Assn. meet in Provo, Utah, won the 100 in a wind-aided 10.93.

She said that she isn’t competitively oriented, but just wants to excel as a sprinter.

Randy Barnes, the Olympic silver medalist in the shotput, had only two fair throws but won his event at 70-2 1/2.

Another silver medalist, Butch Reynolds, finished second behind Henry Thomas in the 200. Thomas, who is red-shirting this year at UCLA, was timed in 20.42 compared to Reynolds’ 20.46.

Reynolds, the world record-holder in the 400 at 43.29 seconds, says he plans to run more 200s. He reasons that if he competes regularly in the 400, a competitive event now, he will burn out before the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain.

Reynolds, who was favored to win the gold medal in the 400 at Seoul last September, is still devastated by his second-place finish behind UCLA’s Steve Lewis, a freshman at the time.

“It really hurt,” Reynolds said. “I didn’t even want to take a victory lap (with Lewis and bronze medalist Danny Everett), but I did. I took my lumps and grew up fast.”

Track Notes

Steve Scott held off Jeff Atkinson to win the 1,500 in 3:39.33. Scott, 33, said that he plans to gear his training in the future to the 5,000, adding, “But I’ll never give up the mile” . . . Mike Buncic won the discus with a creditable throw of 222-3. . . . Cuba’s Ana Quirot, the world’s No. 1-ranked women’s 800-meter runner in 1988, won her specialty in 2:00.43. . . . USC’s Robert Reading, a favorite in the NCAA 110-meter high hurdles, finished third in that event with a personal best time of 13.45.