WORLD SPORTS SCENE / RANDY HARVEY : Tragedy Jeopardizes Lewis-Johnson Race

It appeared a month ago that a 100 meters race on May 30 in Seville, Spain featuring the first meeting between Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson since the 1988 Summer Olympics was a done deal, but it became undone because of a tragic accident.

Both Lewis and Johnson had agreed to sign a contract negotiated with them by Felipe del Valle Perea, the Seville meet director. According to published reports in Europe, the deal was worth $2 million to Lewis and $1 million to Johnson.

While that might not sound so lucrative to Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield, it is the most money ever offered to track athletes. Del Valle apparently had backing from the Universal Exposition that is scheduled for Seville in 1992, French television and various sponsors.

But after arranging to fly to North America to get signatures from Lewis and Johnson, del Valle was killed in an automobile accident in Spain.

The deal might have died with him.

Lewis’ manager, Joe Douglas of the Santa Monica Track Club, said last week that Seville has a new meet director, who was not satisfied with the original contract.

“He sent us a new proposal, but we didn’t accept it,” Douglas said. “I don’t know if we’re going to be able to reach an agreement.”

Johnson, suspended for two years after testing positive for an anabolic steroid at the Seoul Olympics, returns to competition in the 50 meters Friday night at the Hamilton, Ont., Spectator Indoor Games. The meet director, Cecil Smith, anticipates a record crowd.

But Al Franken, promoter of the Jan. 18 Sunkist Invitational at the Sports Arena, is making no such predictions for his meet, which will feature Johnson’s second appearance of the year. Through last Friday, Franken said that he had sold less than 6,000 tickets. The meet attracted more than 13,000 spectators in 1985 and 1987.

“So far, we’ve shown a modest increase over last year,” Franken said. “But we thought he’d be a blockbuster ticket attraction.”

Franken hopes ticket sales will be spurred by Johnson’s performance in Hamilton. But Johnson’s coach, Loren Seagrave, warned at a press conference last week in Toronto that people should not expect too much.

“The one thing I want to stress, with all the media and all the hype, is that this isn’t the World Championships,” he said. “That’s what we’re pointing at--Tokyo in August. That’s the real focus for this season. Hamilton, although it’s the first race back in a long time, is just the first step in a path up the mountain.”

The Canadian government, which commissioned an inquiry into drug use by Canadian athletes after Johnson’s bust in Seoul, is expected to announce Wednesday that it will establish a national agency for doping control. Besides sponsoring educational programs, the government will organize frequent, random, unannounced testing for athletes in 50 sports. Athletes who test positive will be suspended for four years.

In interviews last fall with Theresa Munoz of The Times, some U.S. swimming coaches and officials said that they feared the recent improvement of Chinese swimmers might have been fueled by drugs. Now, that speculation has surfaced in Perth, Australia, the site of swimming’s World Championships.

“People are asking how they can improve so quickly,” Canadian Coach Dave Johnson said of the Chinese in an interview with the Associated Press. “Whether or not the standard was attained by hard work or drug induced, we’ve got to find out.

“We’ve got to be more aggressive. For 15 years, we all knew something had to be going on for the East Germans to be swimming the times they did, but nothing was done.”

Australian Coach Don Talbot accused Johnson of “witch-hunting.”

The swimming competition at the World Championships begins in earnest today, when the highlight is expected to be the 400-meter individual medley rematch between Stanford teammates Janet Evans of Placentia and Summer Sanders of Roseville, Calif.

Sanders upset Evans in that event at last summer’s Goodwill Games.

Evans, who is entered in five events in Perth, said during a press conference last week that she was less bothered by her loss to Sanders than by the way it was reported by the media.

“Instead of concentrating on Summer’s win, it was my loss,” she said.

Soccer notes: Several English newspapers are reporting that Liverpool Coach Kenny Dalglish is on the U.S. Soccer Federation’s short-list of four men who are under consideration to coach the U.S. team in the 1994 World Cup. USSF spokesman John Polis said that he knew the stories were bogus when they reported a salary of $2 million a year. He added that U.S. Coach Bob Gansler is under contract through 1991.

Viewers of the British Broadcasting Company voted for England’s latest sensation, Paul Gascoigne of the Tottenham Hotspurs, as sports personality of the year. But “Gazzamania” appears to be wearing thin after he was ejected from a New Year’s Day game for swearing at an official and then allegedly assaulting a photographer.

The Missouri Athletic Club will award its prestigious college player of the year trophy tonight. UCLA’s Billy Thompson is a finalist.

West German captain Lothar Matthaeus won the Golden Ball as Europe’s best player in 1990. Runner-up Salvatore Schillaci, who led the World Cup in scoring while playing for Italy, recently was suspended for one game in the Italian League because the Juventus forward threatened to have an opposing player shot.