SOUTH AFRICA’S RETURN TO THE OLYMPICS : Opinions Vary on Readmission : U.S. reaction: It’s a dream to Maree, but others such as DeFrantz are wary of lifting sanctions.

American distance runner Sydney Maree, a former South African, greeted Tuesday’s announcement by the International Olympic Committee ending South Africa’s banishment from international sports with jubilation.

“It’s like a dream come true,” he said from New York.

Jennifer Davis, executive director of the New York-based American Committee on Africa, called the decision premature.

“While you may now say there is no technical apartheid in sport, kids go to apartheid schools,” she said. “There’s absolutely no doubt that black kids have far worse facilities than white kids.”

U.S. reactions varied Tuesday on the landmark announcement that ended a 21-year Olympic ban on South African athletes.

Maree, who left South Africa to attend Villanova, then stayed to become an American citizen, empathized with the plight of athletes from his former homeland. He said he did not want them to suffer the consequences he did in his quest to become an Olympian, which was realized in 1984.

“I truly did not wish what I went through on anybody else whatsoever,” he said. “For me, it was a breakthrough in 1981 when I was able to compete internationally. It was an opening where I looked back and felt sorry for those millions who I believe had even better talent than I had who were kept away and isolated.”

That isolation was a result of South Africa’s policy of apartheid, or racial segregation.

Now that the legal walls of apartheid are crumbling, some U.S. sports officials believe it is time to soften some sanctions.

Ollan Cassell, executive director of The Athletics Congress, the national governing body for track and field, said: “The decision solves one of the great problems in sports. It was like a great big sore that kept festering up. Whenever there was an Olympic Games or a World Championships, you had to worry about how (the problem) was going to affect the competition.”

Mike Moran, spokesman for the U.S Olympic Committee, said: “The people who were the most important part of this decision were the black African nations and their Olympic committees, who have been, obviously, the toughest audience to please during this review period.”

Andrew Young, the former United Nations ambassador and member of the Apartheid and Olympism Commission, told reporters in Lausanne, Switzerland, that Tuesday’s decision was the culmination of 20 years of work to ensure fairness in sports.

“Now there is a multiracial group that is committed to provide equal access and opportunity to athletes of all races,” Young said. “Today’s decision will have a great impact on South African sports and life.”

The impact of sports has been felt for more than three decades. Richard E. Lapchick, director of Northeastern University’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society, said the international sports community was one of the first to ostracize South Africa for its racial policy. That in turn publicized the situation, and the resulting controversy led to political and economic sanctions.

So, he welcomes South Africa’s readmittance into sports, but, like some others, is not ready to accept lifting other sanctions.

“Sports is one area where the pressure could be left off,” he said, adding that the country deserves a reward for fulfilling some of President Frederik W. de Klerk’s promises of change.

“Sport has always been a symbolic area,” Lapchick said. “Without the sports boycott of South Africa, we may have taken years longer to impose economic sanctions.”

Maree agreed that sanctions were important. Outside pressure was needed to force South Africa’s leaders to “clean house,” he said.

But whether those officials have gone far enough to warrant recognition was questioned by some critics of South Africa.

“Promises, promises, let’s have a little more delivery,” said Davis, of the American Committee on Africa.

LeRoy Walker, former president of TAC, has opposed lifting sports sanctions until all South Africans are given the right to vote.

Walker, senior vice president of sport for the Atlanta Committee of the Olympic Games, was cautious in his praise of the announcement. Walker, like other critics of apartheid, said that even though legislation has been passed to change the system, considerable work is needed to eradicate the roots of the problem.

“My heart bleeds for the (athletes), but I can’t overlook the other part because, having suffered enough in this country as a black, I know how difficult it is,” he said.

Anita DeFrantz, president of the Amateur Athletic Foundation in Los Angeles, was more succinct: “The end to racist laws does not mean the end to racism.”

DeFrantz said that athletes around the world have been held hostage because of apartheid, not only those within South Africa’s borders.

Tyrus Jefferson, a long jumper from Tyler, Tex., has a personal understanding of DeFrantz’s viewpoint.

Jefferson was banned for life for joining a rebel tour of U.S. track and field athletes who visited South Africa in 1988. He acknowledged that he went for the money but, once there, learned about the country and its problems.

Jefferson, who is black, said he returned the next year to help the athletes he had met and to give the poor blacks in the townships some hope. He now believes that South Africans never should have been banned from international competition.

“I don’t think you should make the athletes pay for what the government is doing,” he said. “I still don’t understand why they do this to the athletes. To be the best has no color that I’ve ever seen. It’s still confusing to me. I’ll never understand that. I’ve had some of the best years taken from my life (as an athlete), so I’ve been hurt, too.”

Jefferson, who placed seventh in the long jump in the 1988 U.S. Olympic trials, said many of his friends shunned him because of his stance.

“All I did was run track,” he said. “I didn’t shoot anybody. It will affect me for the rest of my life.”

Maree has been haunted for more than a decade. He was one of South Africa’s most famous athletes to compete internationally, so his identity has been linked to his former homeland.

“It’s a link that you can never dislocate,” he said. “It’s a link that will always remain there. Those emotional feelings will always be there.”

Although his reflections are bittersweet, Maree is hopeful for the future. “You are going to see eager, desperate and hungry young men and women who want to demonstrate to the world the talent that they possess,” he said.

“I will be in Barcelona, hopefully, wearing different colors. But I surely will dance and cheer for the South Africans.”

ANOTHER CHANCE: International Olympic Committee reopens door to South Africa after 21 years of banishment. A1