World Sports Scene / Randy Harvey : His Medals Mission Over, Gymnast Finds He Is Expendable

On the surface, Soviet gymnast Dimitry Bilozerchev’s story appeared to be one of the most inspirational in last year’s Seoul Olympics.

In 1985, Bilozerchev, driving while drunk, crashed his car and broke his leg in 38 places. There were serious doubts about whether he would compete again. But he persevered through difficult therapy, for which he was rewarded with three gold medals and a bronze at Seoul.

Now for the rest of the story. According to a Soviet sports newspaper, Sovietsky Sport, Bilozerchev was almost removed from the gymnastics team before it left for Seoul because of his alcoholism.

Soviet sports officials, however, allowed him to compete in the Olympics “with the goal of general victory of the Soviet team,” Sovietsky Sport reported.

Commenting on the inflated role that sports plays in Soviet society, the newspaper added, “The brilliance of medals is more important for us than a person’s fate.”

Last week, Bilozerchev, 22, and a teammate, Vladimir Gogoladze, were expelled from the Soviet team after a two-day drinking binge.

Ricky Davis, the United States’ best known soccer player since Kyle Rote Jr., was looking forward to this week’s Marlboro Cup at the Coliseum because he believed it would be his first action for the national team since last year because of injuries.

But the U.S. Soccer Federation determined that Davis, 30, might never regain the considerable skills he first displayed on the national stage as a teen-age midfielder with the New York Cosmos and did not renew his contract.

Davis, captain of the U.S. Olympic teams in 1984 and 1988, has played 43 full international games, more than any other American.

But as one bright career fades, another begins. Only a couple of months out of high school in Schaumberg, Ill., Steve Snow, 18, joined the national team for a tournament last week in Italy and scored a goal in the 4-3 upset victory over AS Roma that gave the United States third place.

Quarter-milers Steve Lewis, the Olympic gold medalist, and Danny Everett, the bronze medalist, did not run in the Jack in the Box invitational track meet Sunday at UCLA because they wanted to get to Malmo, Sweden, early, making sure they were over their jet lag in time for Thursday night’s 400-meter race against world record-holder Butch Reynolds, the silver medalist. But Lewis never made it to the airport, having been shut down by a recurring hamstring injury last week during a workout at UCLA.

Trivia question: Lewis, Reynolds and Everett are unquestionably the world’s best 400-meter runners. So who will represent the United States in the event at the World Cup, Sept. 8-10 at Barcelona?

Answer: Antonio Pettigrew of Miami-Dade South Community College. He ran 44.83 seconds in winning the 400 in June at the national championships, which were not attended by the United States’ three Olympic medalists.

The Chicago Tribune reported that U.S. gymnast Phoebe Mills’ decision to retire from the sport was accelerated after it was determined last spring that she had Epstein-Barr syndrome, an energy-sapping disease with symptoms similar to mononucleosis.

“Maybe the illness was a sign,” said Mills, 16. “Maybe it was telling me that I had done what I could in gymnastics and should go on.”

So Mills went, leaving Houston after six years of intense training in Bela Karolyi’s gym and returning home to Northfield, Ill., where she is enrolled in summer school.

She took with her the bronze medal that she won on the balance beam at Seoul.

According to his interpretation of the law, Greg LeMond became a free agent at midnight Monday. Thirty days before, he had filed notice that his Belgian team, ADR, was in default of its contract with him.

But he and his attorneys were overly optimistic when they said last weekend before a race at Montreal that they expected to have a contract with a U.S. team, most likely Coors or 7-Eleven, by Tuesday.

“Those teams haven’t reacted as quickly as we thought they would,” said one of LeMond’s attorneys, Nathan Jenkins of Reno.

Notes

A committee calling itself Friends of SDSU Track and including 1976 Olympic long jump champion Arnie Robinson has begun a campaign to save track and field at San Diego State University, which dropped the sport because of budget problems. The campaign’s first phase is to raise $150,000, which university officials say they need to restore the program this year. The committee reports that is has close to $50,000. Further information can be obtained from the track and field office at San Diego State, (619) 594-5536.

The U.S. Soccer Federation chose not to renew the contract of forward Brent Goulet, 25, a talented goal scorer who has not developed because of injuries. . . . For the first time, the British men qualified as a team for track and field’s World Cup in September at Barcelona by winning the Europa Cup last weekend. The Soviets, who finished second, also qualified. The East German and Soviet women qualified.

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, the British ice dancing champions from the 1984 Winter Olympics, will return to the United States in October for a four-month tour that also will feature 20 Soviets. The tour has scheduled shows in Los Angeles, Jan. 9-14.