U.S. OLYMPIC FESTIVAL : ROUNDUP : Lawrence Walks Away With American Record

The track and field competition slowed to a walk in the U.S. Olympic Festival on Friday.

Debbi Lawrence of Kenosha, Wis., broke her American record in the 10-kilometer race walk, and two-time Olympian Carl Schueler won a 20-kilometer event that wound up being shorter than planned.

Also Friday, Wendy Lian Williams and defending champion Matt Scoggin won the 10-meter platform preliminaries.

Lawrence finished her race in 46 minutes 10.26 seconds, breaking the American record of 46:14.4 she set in The Athletics Congress meet June 15. She also broke the Festival record of 47:54.0 by Maryanne Torrellas of Clinton, Conn., in 1987.

Lawrence, 28, got an assist from the crowd, which gave her a standing ovation throughout her last lap. She covered the final 400 meters in 1:45 after going at a 1:51 pace for most of the race.

“I think I wanted it bad enough that it (the crowd) wouldn’t have made any difference,” she said.

Schueler knew early on that something was amiss in the 20-kilometer race.

“I’ve been racing for 12 years, so when we came through the first lap at the 2 1/2-kilometer mark I saw the clock and knew the course was short,” Schueler said. “When six guys are on world-record pace at 2 1/2 kilometers, you know something is not right.”

The course was inadvertently laid out to cover 18.230 kilometers. Schueler, of Colorado Springs, Colo., won the race in 1 hour 18 minutes 59 seconds.

Phil Henson, the U.S. Olympic Committee’s commissioner of athletics, said turnaround cones for the race were mistakenly placed at the wrong marker of what was supposed to be a 2 1/2-kilometer loop. The error shortened the loop by about 200 meters.

“After it was discovered, they considered extending it another lap,” Henson said. “But the referee felt that would be too confusing to the athletes.”

National champion Meredith Rainey of New York won the 800 meters in 2:03.40, overtaking silver medalist Celeste Halliday of Bloomfield, Conn., in the final 50 meters.

In diving, Williams easily finished first in the 10-meter platform preliminaries in her first festival appearance since 1985. The 447.69 points were a personal preliminary best for Williams, a 1988 Olympic bronze medalist.

Her closest pursuer was Cokey Smith of Ann Arbor, Mich., the only competitor whose eight-dive total (381.15) exceeded Williams’ score after seven dives (372.93).

Scoggin, of Austin, Tex., won the men’s preliminary round with a 628.86, taking the lead with a near-perfect dive in the next-to-last round. He was awarded three 10s and four 9.5s for an inward 3 1/2 somersault in the tuck position.

Edward Morse of Miami was second with 574.35 and Pat Jeffery of Madison, N.J., was third at 572.37.