WORLD TRACK AND FIELD CHAMPIONSHIPS ROUNDUP : Mitchell Had Fast Start Before Lewis’ Fast Finish

An official starter was second-guessed Monday at track and field’s World Championships for failing to recall the 100-meter final in which Carl Lewis set a world record of 9.86 seconds.

According to the electronic eye at the starting line, Dennis Mitchell of the United States could have been charged with a false start in Sunday night’s race because his reaction time to the gun was one-hundredth of a second under the allowable margin of one-tenth of a second. Mitchell finished third in 9.91, the fourth-fastest time ever.

International Amateur Athletic Federation officials said the starter, Tadanobu Nozaki, a Tokyo university physical education director, should have been alerted to the false start by an acoustic signal from his headset.

But Arthur Takac, a Yugoslav member of the IAAF’s technical committee, said Nozaki was not wearing the headset.

Takac said the results will stand because the electronic eye is used only for the assistance of the starters and that they are the final judge of whether a competitor starts before the gun. But he added that the technology should be used if available, a subject he said the IAAF technical committee will discuss at its next meeting in October.

Mitchell’s start was more than three-hundredths of a second faster than the one by Great Britain’s Linford Christie, who finished one-hundredth of a second behind Mitchell in fourth place. British officials offered to protest on Christie’s behalf, but he declined.

One day after losing his world record in the 100 to Lewis, Leroy Burrell failed to advance past the second round in the 200 meters. He slowed with about 20 meters remaining in his heat, finishing sixth in 21.21.

“I was tired, obviously,” said Burrell, who ran four rounds over the weekend in the 100 meters, in which he finished second to Lewis in 9.88. “When I saw I wasn’t in it, there was no use pushing. It was a difficult schedule, and I didn’t have it in me.”

Michael Johnson led all qualifiers for today’s semifinals in a meet-record time of 20.05 despite jogging the final 20 strides after it became obvious that he would advance.

In other events:

--The United States won its third gold medal when Kenny Harrison finished first in the triple jump with a best of 58-4. Teammate Mike Conley was third at 57-9 3/4.

--Susan Sirma of Kenya finished third in the 3,000 meters to become the first African woman to win a World Championships medal. The Soviet Union’s Tatiana Dorovskikh won that race, defending her title from four years ago at Rome when her last name was Samolenko.

--Maria Mutola, a 19-year-old U.S. high school student who competes for Mozambique, almost won another medal for African women. But in the final few strides of the 800 meters, she was elbowed and had her path impeded by Romania’s Ella Kovacs, who lunged across the finish line in third place after the resulting collision. No protest was filed.

--Renaldo Nehemiah withdrew from the 110-meter hurdles because of a back sprain.