TRACK AND FIELD / TAC CHAMPIONSHIPS : Devers-Roberts Clears Biggest Hurdle to Win

Gail Devers-Roberts was about to go to the track to prepare for the 100-meter hurdle finals at Downing Stadium Friday when her coach, Bob Kersee, whisked her to a quiet area under a tree in the warm-up area. He asked her to kneel and pray with him.

“Lord, we’ve got 10 more hurdles to overcome,” he said as tears welled in their eyes. “It’s in your hands now.”

Later, Kersee called it a miracle that Devers-Roberts, a former UCLA All-American from Palmdale, ran the second-fastest time by a woman in the nation this year, 12.83 seconds, in winning at the USA/Mobil Outdoor Championships and earning a berth on the U.S. team for this summer’s World Championships in Tokyo.

Devers-Roberts has been battling Graves’ disease, the result of a hyperactive thyroid, since June of 1988. As recently as December of last year, she collapsed on the Drake Stadium track and was taken by ambulance to the UCLA Medical Center.

She began working out seriously again less than two months ago, but she said that she believed when she qualified for this meet at Modesto May 12 that she had a chance to be successful here.

“It was all a matter of faith,” she said.

Greg Foster ran 13.29 in winning his fifth national championship in the 110-meter hurdles at 32, but it is a credit to the respect he still commands that it was not considered an upset.

The story was that his former nemesis, Renaldo Nehemiah, also 32, finished third in 13.36, earning a berth on his first U.S. national team since the 1979 World Cup.

“I hate talking about time,” said Nehemiah, who missed four years of track while playing wide receiver for the San Francisco 49ers. “But it’s a testament to our innate, God-given ability that we can endure.”

In the women’s 100 meters, Carlette Guidry, NCAA champion in the 100 and 200, ran the second-fastest time by a woman in the world this year, 10.94, beating runner-up Gwen Torrence (11.02) and Evelyn Ashford (11.12).

Marion Jones, a 15-year-old sophomore from Oxnard Rio Mesa High and the youngest qualifier for a national championship final since Mary Slaney was 14 in 1973, finished eighth in 11.46.

Slaney, attempting another comeback after numerous injuries, warmed up for the 1,500-meter semifinals in her first major national meet since 1988, then walked off the track because of leg cramps and told her husband, “I can’t do it.” They walked off into the sunset, arm in arm.

Steve Lewis, 1988 Olympic champion in the 400 meters but injury-plagued since, pulled up at 200 meters of the semifinals.

“I felt a slight twinge in the left hamstring,” he said. “It has been bothering me the last several weeks, and I was concerned.”

Julie Jenkins, the nation’s No. 1 ranked 800-meter runner in 1990 who missed the first round Thursday after being hit by a van while crossing a street in Manhattan, received a waiver into Friday’s semifinals.

But her manager, Tom Sturak, did not think she would run.

“When she limped out of here yesterday, I thought, ‘No way,’ ” he said. “But she said she felt fine this morning.”

She ran fine, finishing third in her heat in 2:03.18 to qualify for today’s final. She agreed to speak with reporters only after receiving treatment.

“We’ve got to put her back together again,” said her coach/husband, Milan Donley.

And after threatening to suspend athletes who ran against Butch Reynolds Thursday in the first round of the 400 meters, the International Amateur Athletic Federation, which governs track and field, appears to be backing off.

“We are unlikely to do much,” a high-ranking IAAF official who did not want to be identified told reporters at the International Olympic Committee meetings in Birmingham, England.

The indication was that the so-called contamination rule, which prohibits athletes from knowingly competing against other athletes who are under suspension, would not be enforced.

Reynolds has been suspended by the IAAF for two years after testing positive for an anabolic steroid last August. But he was allowed to enter this meet by a federal arbitrator. He finished seventh in his heat and did not qualify for Friday’s semifinals.