U.S. OLYMPIC FESTIVAL LOS ANGELES 1991 : WEIGHTLIFTING : Team Gets Special Send-Off

The guy always said he would be back, and there he was Sunday, returning to his roots as a weightlifter, his sport of choice before switching to bodybuilding and then to something of a promising film career.

Before you could say weightlifting at the Olympic Festival had been terminated, Arnold Schwarzenegger had arrived. He handed the gold medal in the 242 1/2-plus-pound (super heavyweight) to Mario Martinez, the silver to Jeff Michels and the bronze to Mark Henry in UCLA’s Royce Hall and then waded through the crowd and through a hallway, signing autographs and posing for pictures as he went.

“I was just picking with him,” Henry, a Texas native, said of his victory-stand chat with the actor who has turned muscle into millions. “I told him I was going to meet up with him in his next movie. He just laughed.”

The United States couldn’t have hoped for a more symbolic send-off to the Pan American Games, finishing what amounted to a tuneup competition with good feelings about taking on the powerful Cubans on their home turf. In fact, Roger Nielson, the 1992 Olympic coach, said that he was only disappointed by the number of misses in one weight class, 181 3/4 pounds, and is not that concerned because they are not supposed to peak until Aug. 5 in Havana anyway.

He rates the Americans a having five legitimate shots at gold there: Rich Schutz, who won the 242 1/2-pound division; Paul Fleschle and Bret Brian, who battled to a 1-2 finish at 198 1/4; and Bryan Jacob and Than Nguyen at 133 1/4.

The biggest winner Sunday was probably Wesley Barnett. He earned a trip to the world championships in late September and early October by winning the 220 1/4-pound class in an upset over defending national champion Dave Langon.

For the first time, no women broke national records. Simi Valley’s Kathryn Elliott, who attended Moorpark College and Cal State Northridge, set national junior records in the 181 3/4-plus division for snatch (143 1/4 pounds), clean and jerk (181 3/4) and combined total (325). Karyn Marshall set Festival records for the snatch (198 1/4), clean and jerk (264 1/2) and total (462 3/4) at 181 3/4 pounds.

The three-day competition ended with eight national records for the women and two for the men, not to mention a good feeling for what is ahead.

You didn’t have to be part of the U.S. teams to see that.

“I saw there was a lot of will up there,” said Schwarzenegger, who counts Gottfried Schodl, the president of the International Weightlifting Federation, among his friends. “That’s the important thing.”