Toomey Gets ’94 Olympic Festival Job

Olympic decathlon gold medalist Bill Toomey has taken on another challenge.

“This is not a job, it’s a mission,” said Toomey, who on Tuesday was named president and executive director of the 1994 U.S. Olympic Festival in St. Louis. “I’m the happiest guy in St. Louis, if not America.”

Toomey, 52, is scheduled to assume his duties June 24, said Harry Morley, chairman of the sports committee of the St. Louis Regional Commerce and Growth Assn.

Besides winning the gold in the decathlon in the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, Toomey was the decathlon world record holder in 1969 and was a 1984 inductee into the Olympic Hall of Fame.

Since 1988, Toomey has served as director of corporate relations for the San Diego National Sports Training Foundation, which is building the U.S. Olympic training center.

“I’m excited about the opportunity to help bring the Olympic spirit to St. Louis,” Toomey said. “The Olympic Festival concept has really grown and prospered.”

The festival is tentatively set for July 1-10, 1994. It is conducted in the summer of every non-Olympic year with more than 3,500 American athletes competing in 37 sports.

“We have to create a strategy, we have to create a value, so that it is more than just a number of events,” Toomey said. “It has to have a meaning.”

The festival will be conducted in Los Angeles this summer.