Lewis Anchors 37.50 Relay to Complete Record Meet

Not everything Carl Lewis touched turned to gold at track and field’s third World Championships, but, all things considered, it was a remarkable nine days for him. The same could be said for many of his U.S. teammates, the Soviets and the Africans, but, as for the Germans, is it too late to rebuild that wall?

After breaking the world record in the 100 meters with a time of 9.86 seconds and long jumping more than 29 feet three times in a second-place finish to Mike Powell’s astonishing world record of 29-4 1/2, Lewis returned to the National Stadium on the final day Sunday to participate in still another world record.

This record, one of only three at the sport’s second-most prestigious competition behind the Summer Olympics, was not entirely unpredictable. Lewis was running the anchor leg on a 400-meter relay team that included the three fastest men in history--Lewis, Leroy Burrell and Dennis Mitchell--and, in the leadoff position, the reigning world indoor champion at 60 meters, Andre Cason.

Without Lewis, the other three and alternate Mike Marsh ran the second-fastest time ever in Saturday’s semifinals, 37.75 seconds, not much slower than the world record of 37.67 that Lewis, Burrell, Mitchell and Marsh set this summer at Zurich. It was apparent that, barring a major mistake like the one the U.S. team made in failing to qualify for the final in the 1988 Summer Olympics, the record would fall Sunday.

It did, all the way to 37.50. The French, who held the record for 11 months and never allowed anyone to forget it, were second in 37.87.

“I’ve heard about the French saying they wanted this or that,” Cason said. “Well, we’ll take them on anytime, anywhere.”

It was a bit of well-earned bravado on behalf of the U.S. team. With Charles Austin’s upset later in the day of Cuba’s Javier Sotomayor, the only man ever to clear eight feet in the high jump, the United States finished the World Championships with 10 gold medals. That was one more than the Soviets, who won 28 total medals to 26 for the United States.

Nine of the United States’ gold medals were won by the men, who finished first in more than one-third of the 24 events. One of their few disappointments came in the 1,600-meter relay Sunday, when USC’s Quincy Watts ran a strong second leg in 43.5 to give the United States a lead, but Antonio Pettigrew, who had become the world champion in the 400 meters only a few days before, could not hold it on the anchor and was overtaken by Great Britain’s Kris Akabussi.

In beating the United States in a 1,600-meter relay final for the first time in a major championship since 1936, not counting races in which either team dropped the baton, the British ran a European record of 3:57.53 to 3:57.57 for the runners-up.

That resulted in the inevitable second-guessing of the U.S. policy of awarding 1,600-meter relay berths only to runners who competed in the 400 meters at this summer’s national championships. That meant that the world’s No.1-ranked quarter-miler, Michael Johnson, was 6,000 miles away in Waco, Tex., during the 1,600-meter relay because he competed at nationals only in the 200, which he easily won here last week before flying home.

“Everybody can speculate that with Michael Johnson or someone else we might have won, but that’s just speculation,” said Tom Tellez, the U.S. men’s coach from the University of Houston. “The point is that these kids earned their spots, and it was their responsibility to run well. I think they did.

“But the Brits were out to beat us. We’ve been hearing that from the day we got here. They put up a good time, and they beat us. But six more inches, we would have won, and nobody would have said a single thing about that relay.”

That was the last of the 43 events, and “God Save the Queen,” was heard for only the second time, the first for the British men. Other than the United States, only two countries won more than one gold medal in men’s events, Kenya with four and the Soviet Union with three.

African men continued their dominance of distances longer than 400 meters. Kenyans won the 800, 5,000, 10,000 and 3,000-meter steeplechase, and Noureddine Morceli, an Algerian who trains at Riverside, ran away with Sunday’s 1,500 meters in 3:32.84. The man who was supposed to be his primary competition, Morocco’s Said Aouita, finished 12th. Of 18 medals awarded in men’s events between 800 meters and the marathon, Africans won 13.

This also might be remembered as a breakthrough meet for African women, who had never won a world championship medal. They won two here when Algerian Hassiba Boulmerka finished first in the 1,500 meters and Kenyan Susan Sirma finished third in the 3,000. Mozambique’s Maria Mutola finished fourth in the 800.

Long jumper Jackie Joyner-Kersee won the only gold medal for the U.S. women, although she probably would have won another in the heptathlon if she had not suffered an injured hamstring. But the women’s coach, Dave Rodda of Cal State Long Beach, was encouraged because the women displayed more depth than ever before. They also won medals in events--Gail Devers-Roberts’ silver in the 100-meter hurdles and Janeene Vickers’ bronze in the 400-meter hurdles--that have been troublesome for them. Except for the 1984 Olympics, U.S. women had not won a 100-meter hurdles medal in a major championship since the 1932 Olympics.

But the prevailing theme of the women’s competition was the decline of the German women, specifically those who formerly competed for East Germany. East German women won eight gold medals at the World Championships in 1983 and six in 1987, but, with their countries now unified, East and West German women combined for only four gold medals here. The East contributed two of them, both by sprinter Katrin Krabbe.

The entire German team, men and women, won only five gold medals, which is half as many as the East Germans alone won in each of the last two World Championships.

When the Berlin Wall crumbled, there was speculation that the combined German team would be dominant in track and field, but that has not developed for a variety of reasons, most having to do with the decreased emphasis on sports in the unified country.

Another might be the strict anti-doping policies of the new German federation. But random, out-of-competition testing, which has become prevalent since the Ben Johnson steroid scandal in the 1988 Summer Olympics, is widely believed to have had an impact on the sport throughout the world.

That is particularly true in throwing events, in which six of the seven winning performances here were down from those at the same meet in 1987. The only one in which there was improvement was the men’s javelin, which has a new, more aerodynamic implement.

“There’s no question that random testing has had an effect,” Tellez said. “I think the sport is pretty doggone clean right now. There might be a few athletes who are beating the system. But it’s a very small percentage.”

The question for the coming year, leading to the Summer Olympics at Barcelona, Spain, might be whether the Soviets can continue to produce the results they did here, considering the apparent political disintegration of the country.

Speculation is that they can because only the Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which are not particularly strong in track and field, are likely to compete as independent nations at Barcelona.

After that?

“The situation is changing every day,” said the head of the Soviet delegation, former long jumper Igor Ter-Ovanesian. “Nobody knows what is going to happen.”

Another question for Barcelona is whether Lewis, who will turn 31 next year, can continue to improve. Tellez, who coaches him in Houston, said he has never performed better than he did here.

“He was more focused than at any other time since the 1984 Olympics,” Tellez said. “This was different because, in L.A., his objective was to win four gold medals, not to jump far or run fast. This time, it was a matter of running fast and jumping far. He told himself before this meet, ‘If I’m going to be in this sport any longer, I’d better do what I can do.’ ”

All he did was ran faster than any other man in history. He also had three of the six longest jumps in history, although on a night when Powell had the longest.

A disappointed Lewis said afterward that he might not jump again.

“Maybe, but I don’t think so,” Tellez said. “Now that he knows he can jump that far, I think he’ll keep going. He’ll jump farther. I know he will.”