Record-Breaker Powell Leaps Into Limelight : Track and field: Long jumper finally getting his due as whirlwind tour continues after Tokyo feat.

Mike Powell, in a short span of dazzling days and nights, finally has what he has wanted for so long--a world record in the long jump, international acclaim, money, swarming fans, media attention, minutes of uninterrupted sleep. . . .

Powell, freshly back from his triumph at the track and field World Championships in Tokyo but hardly fresh, had a chance Tuesday to do what really huge sports stars get to do--hold court.

Powell presided over a meandering news conference at the long jump pit at UCLA’s Drake Stadium, during which he explained to dozens of reporters, their cameras and microphones, again, how it was that he jumped 29 feet 4 1/2 inches last Friday to beat Bob Beamon’s 23-year-old world record. Throughout the afternoon the 27-year-old apologized for lapses and his bleary-eyed look. He has been operating on less than three hours’ sleep a night since the jump, he said, so please excuse him.

In fact, Powell’s watch was still set on Tokyo time, eight time zones to the West.

“It started right after the jump,” he said. “I had a guy pulling me to go to drug testing at the same time I had reporters pulling me this way. People were just grabbing me and I was getting mad. I did an interview with NBC. I did BBC. I did French television and I did Swiss television. I did German TV. Japanese television. Before I knew it, it was 3 o’clock in the morning and I was still doing interviews. The competition was over at about 10 till 8.

“So, that first night I got to sleep about 3. At 4 o’clock in the morning I get a call from Mexico City. They want to do a radio interview. At 5-something I get a call from Denver, they want to do something. At 7 o’clock in the morning I get a call from (L.A. sportscaster) Jim Hill, waking me up.”

It has been that way ever since, which is what Powell has wanted for so long. Not the adulation, but the recognition. Powell has come of age in an event dominated by the sport’s master showman, Carl Lewis. He has matured behind one of the world’s most consistent jumpers, Larry Myricks.

Powell was the silver medalist at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul and is the No. 1 ranked long jumper in the world. Not many people know that, and it left him quietly seething.

Powell made the slights work for him. He fed on them, and the lack of recognition nurtured him. It brought him to this.

It seems, though, that his reign as track and field’s monarch will be marked by circumspection and a refreshing grounding in reality. Being overlooked apparently has taught him that.

“It’s easy to be modest,” he said. “When you break it down, long jumping is just running and jumping into dirt. It’s a big deal. It’s good. But I’m just having fun. I enjoy it because I know what it is.

“I keep it in perspective. I realize I could be getting up and going to work at 5 in the morning. . . . So, if I have to sign a few autographs, shake a few hands or sit in front of you guys and talk about myself . . . if this is hard work. I’ll take it.”