WORLD SPORTS SCENE : Catalonians Hope to Make Their <i> Lloc</i> at Barcelona Olympics

There are 102 days to go before the 1992 Summer Olympics open at Barcelona, Spain.

On your marks . . .

No, wait.

Als vostres llocs .

Those are the words, in the Catalan language, that track and field’s starters will use at the beginning of each race during the Olympics. That is one of the concessions that has been made to Catalonian political and sports figures, who want to use the Olympics to further their bid for independence from Spain by the year 2000.

“The Olympics is an opportunity to let the whole world know that Catalonia exists,” says Jordi Pujol, the president of a region that is responsible for one-fourth of Spain’s gross national product but is distinct from the rest of the country in virtually every aspect, from language to politics to culture.

The campaign reached a crescendo at the recent International Congress on Law and Sport at Barcelona, the region’s capital, where members of the Catalonia Olympic Committee crashed the opening ceremony, unfurled a large banner and demanded to be heard.

Juan Antonio Samaranch, the International Olympic Committee president, yielded the microphone to COC officials, who criticized the IOC for ushering Croatia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia into the movement while ignoring Catalonia.

A different IOC president might have responded that whereas the others have been recognized as independent nations, Catalonia has not. But Samaranch was in a difficult position, because he is a prominent Catalonian banker. He sought the middle ground, agreeing with the COC but deferring the matter to the Spanish Olympic Committee and Barcelona’s organizing committee.

The Catalonians have submitted a proposal that would allow athletes from the region to march separately in the opening ceremony. Also, in the best example of the deep division between the Catalonians and the Spanish, Catalonian athletes who win gold medals would be honored with the Catalan anthem and flag during the medal ceremonies.

If that is not possible, COC officials said, they would rather have the Olympic flag and anthem used in ceremonies honoring their athletes than the Spanish flag and anthem.

In a different kind of race for him, Sebastian Coe, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in track and field’s 1,500 meters, was successful last week in his bid to earn a place in Great Britain’s House of Commons.

Running as a Conservative in the Falmouth and Camborne district, he outpolled several opponents, among them one from the Official Monster and Loony Party. No, his old track rival, Steve Ovett, was not that party’s standard-bearer.

The U.S. men’s Olympic basketball coach, Chuck Daly, has suggested waiting until mid-May to select the final two members of the team that he will take to Barcelona.

He says that he will know more then about the physical status of some of the U.S. team’s players, such as David Robinson, who has an injured thumb, and Larry Bird, who has back problems, and the inactive Magic Johnson.

Skeptics say that Daly wants to delay the announcement until his Detroit Pistons have been eliminated from the playoffs so that their play will not be affected by the anticipated disappointment of Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars and Dennis Rodman.

If another NBA player is added to the U.S. team, it figures to be Portland’s Clyde Drexler. That would leave one berth for a college player, probably Duke’s Christian Laettner.

Why not Louisiana State’s Shaquille O’Neal, who no doubt will be the NBA’s No. 1 draft choice? It could come down to the fact that O’Neal did not make himself available for the U.S. team last summer in the Pan American Games at Havana. Laettner did.

Katarina Witt’s agent arranges a professional figure skating competition, signs one of her sponsors, Diet Coke, as the title sponsor, and guess who wins? “I think the crowd expected to see a lot more skating and a lot less posing,” said the men’s winner, Scott Hamilton, in his role as a television commentator. He was referring to Witt’s wimpy winning performance in an event at Cincinnati that set pro figure skating’s credibility back at least a decade. . . . U.S. Figure Skating Assn. officials say they have been informed by Christopher Bowman’s mother, Joyce, that he wants to remain in competition through the 1994 Winter Olympics, although he might take off next year for shows and exhibitions.

Notes

An exhibition dedicated to the art and history of Olympic posters continues through May 17 at L.A. County’s Natural History Museum. . . . The newest franchise in the American Pro Soccer League will be known as the L.A. Salsa. It will begin league play next year.

The U.S. under-23 soccer team will resume its attempt to qualify for the Olympics next Sunday with perhaps its most difficult test, a game against Honduras at Tegucigalpa. The United States beat Honduras, 4-3, earlier this month at Fenton, Mo., but the visitors went home in an angry mood after several controversial calls near the end of the game went against them. The referee, Errol Forbes, suffered a bloodied right thumbnail when a Honduran player threw a ball at him.

Teams from soccer’s Central and North American and Caribbean zone continue their qualification tournament for soccer’s 1994 World Cup with Trinidad and Tobago at Barbados, and Antigua at Netherlands Antilles. . . . One day before Arthur Ashe announced that he has AIDS, Gerson, a contemporary of Pele’s on Brazil’s great national soccer teams, revealed that he has tested HIV positive.