Lewis’ Victory in 100 Stirs Up Winds of Furor : Track and field: His time of 9.80 seconds is counted as record for World Championships despite excessive breeze.

There was another Carl Lewis-inspired controversy Saturday, but, for a change, this one had nothing to do with anything he said, wore, dropped out of or drove into. All he did was run fast, faster than anyone has ever run at track and field’s World Championships in the 100 meters.

And the International Amateur Athletic Federation, which governs the sport, declared the 9.80 seconds he needed to complete his second-round heat at the National Stadium a meet record.

That incensed the sport’s purists, who protested that the time should not be considered for record purposes because Lewis had a tail wind only slightly less hardy than the one that carried Dorothy to Oz.

It did seem inconsistent because the IAAF does not recognize times in sprints and horizontal jumps that occur with a prevailing wind of more than 2.0 meters per second as either national or world records. The wind for Lewis’ race was measured at 4.3.

Otherwise, Lewis’ time would have been a national and world record, because it was a full tenth of a second faster than the recognized mark of 9.90 set by his Santa Monica Track Club teammate, Leroy Burrell, this summer in the U.S. championships.

However, Lewis’ 9.80 is only the third-fastest time recorded under any conditions. The 9.78 he ran in 1988 at Indianapolis was wind-aided (5.2), and the 9.79 that Canadian Ben Johnson ran in the 1988 Summer Olympics at Seoul was drug-aided. The latter has been expunged from the IAAF record book because Johnson tested positive for an anabolic steroid after the race and was disqualified.

Still, Lewis’ performance in the second round might be considered an indication of his form entering the semifinals and final. The second-fastest time Saturday, by Frank Fredericks of Namibia and Brigham Young University, was 9.89, almost a tenth of a second slower than Lewis’ even with a 4.1 tail wind. Great Britain’s Linford Christie, a medal favorite, ran 9.90 to finish second in Lewis’ heat.

“All year long, you guys have tried to count me out,” said Lewis, who has finished second to Burrell all three times they have met in 1991. “I’ve not run my best race yet.”

Burrell, who won his heat in 10.11 with a legal 1.5 tail wind, seemed unimpressed.

“Any decent sprinter can run 9.80 with a five-meter wind, and Carl is a great sprinter,” he said.

For the first time, an Asian won a World Championships gold medal when Zhihong Huang won the women’s shotput. Her best effort of 68 feet 4 1/4 gave her a comfortable margin of victory over two Soviets, runner-up Natalia Lisovskaya (66-7) and third-place Svetlana Krivelyova (66-1 3/4).

Huang was ranked No. 1 in the world in 1989, but Lisovskaya has dominated the event at major championships in recent years, winning in the 1987 World Championships and the 1988 Summer Olympics.

“Frankly speaking, I am not used to losing the big ones,” she said. “I am deeply dissatisfied.”

That was in contrast to Krivelyova’s reaction.

“I am happy to be third on my first really big and important competition,” she said.

“The hardest thing was the trip to Tokyo. You know what happened in our country.”

In three finals on the opening day of competition Saturday, Soviet athletes won five of nine available medals.

The 100

A look at the top times in the 100-meter dash.

9.78: Carl Lewis, aided by a wind of 5.2 meters per second, at the 1988 Olympic Trials in Indianapolis.

9.79: Ben Johnson at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Mark was expunged after Johnson tested positive for steroids.

9.80: Carl Lewis, aided by a wind of 4.3 m.p.s., at the World Championships in Tokyo on Saturday.

9.90: World record, in June by Leroy Burrell at The Athletics Championships in New York.

Note: Maximum allowable wind for a world record is 2.0 m.p.s.