U.S. OLYMPIC TRACK AND FIELD TRIALS : Past Glories Lend No Golden Touch : Finals: Defeats are suffered by Lewis, Foster, Kingdom, Slaney and Scott as a new generation emerges.

On another day in the U.S. Olympic trials when some of the nation’s most celebrated track and field athletes felt the pain of no invitation to Spain, one question loomed in the thick, humid air above Tad Gormley Stadium: Is this any way to choose an Olympic team?

The response from most of the sport’s officials and athletes was a resounding yes, but it is possible that there could have been dissent Sunday from Carl Lewis, Greg Foster, Roger Kingdom, Mary Slaney and Steve Scott.

All ran headfirst into disappointment on the final day of the trials. Among them, Lewis is the only one guaranteed a plane ticket to Barcelona for the Olympics, but even he qualified in only one event, the long jump, after competing in four in 1984 and 1988.

Eight days after he finished sixth in the 100 meters, he was edged out of a berth in the 200 on Sunday. Lewis was outleaned at the finish line for third place by Michael Bates, a former University of Arizona running back.

Michael Johnson, No. 1 in the world the last two years, won in 19.79 seconds, equaling the fourth-fastest time ever. Mike Marsh, formerly of UCLA, finished second in 19.86. Then came Bates in 20.14, Lewis in 20.15 and Leroy Burrell in 20.16.

“Some people are going to write me off,” said Lewis, who will turn 31 Tuesday. “That’s just the way it is.”

One of those is Johnson, a weekly guest columnist for a Dallas newspaper who, at 24, would like to be recognized as the United States’ present and future star in the sport.

“It may have been a big deal to the fans to see me run against Carl Lewis . . . it may have been a big deal to Carl Lewis,” said Johnson, who had never been on the track against the winner of six Olympic gold medals until Saturday’s second-round in the 200.

“But it wasn’t a big deal to me. I give all the credit in the world for at one time being the best 200-meter runner in the world. But this is 1992, and I’m the best now.”

Time is also sprinting along in the 110-meter hurdles. The five fastest hurdlers of all time entered the trials, but the three fastest among them, also the three oldest, did not earn berths on the Olympic team.

Renaldo Nehemiah, 33, faltered after Saturday’s second round, failing to show at the start for the semifinal because of illness. Two-time Olympic champion Roger Kingdom, 29, started in the final, but did not finish when he fell after crashing into the eighth and ninth hurdles. Three-time world champion Greg Foster, 33, finished fourth in the final in 13.32.

The first three finishers, considered the next generation of outstanding American hurdlers, were Jack Pierce in 13.13, Tony Dees in 13.23 and Arthur Blake in 13.30.

Foster was among five gold-medalists from last year’s World Championships, along with Lewis in the 100, Antonio Pettigrew in the 400, Kenny Harrison in the triple jump and Dan O’Brien in the decathlon, who did not earn berths on the Olympic team in the events that they won at Tokyo.

Particularly after O’Brien’s shocking demise when he could not clear a height during Saturday’s decathlon pole vault and finished 11th, there were questions from the media, and even some athletes, about the wisdom of such an arbitrary system for selecting the Olympic team. Excepting relay members, only the first three in each event will represent the United States.

“It’s not a new subject, and it’s a subject that will probably be re- visited,” said Ollan Cassell, executive director of the sport’s U.S. governing body, The Athletics Congress. “But the athletes have been opposed in the past to pre-selection of the Olympic team before the trials.”

Mel Rosen, coach of the U.S. men’s team, said: “It’s the fairest system possible. If we just selected the team, we might not know about some of the great athletes who have emerged here.”

Among them are two recent NCAA champions, high jumper Darrin Plab of Southern Illinois and 1,500-meter runner Steve Holman of Georgetown, who finishing second in their events Sunday, and Sharon Couch, a sixth-place finisher in the 1991 NCAA championships from North Carolina who finished third in the long jump here.

A high school junior, Marion Jones of Thousand Oaks, finished fourth in the 200 meters Sunday in a national high school record time of 22.58 and was disappointed that she did not make the team in that event. In all likelihood, however, she will be at Barcelona in the 400-meter relay after earlier finishing fifth in the 100.

It is not as if the Olympic team is devoid of talented veterans. Besides Johnson, other world champions who earned berths Sunday in the events that they won at Tokyo were Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who won the long jump on her first and only jump of 23-2 3/4, and Charles Austin, who finished third in the high jump.

Joyner-Kersee, who earlier won the heptathlon, is one of five athletes who earned the right to compete in the Olympics in two individual events. Her Westwood training partner, Gail Devers, won the 100-meter hurdles Sunday in 12.55, the second-fastest time ever by an American, after previously qualifying in the 100.

Gwen Torrence swept the sprints, adding a 200 victory Sunday in 22.03, the fastest time in the world this year, to the 100 that she won eight days before. Connie Price-Smith became the first woman since 1960 to win both the discus and the shot put in the trials with her victory Sunday in the latter. The 3,000-meter winner, PattiSue Plumer, finished second to Regina Jacobs in Sunday’s 1,500 meters.

But the double here took so much out of Plumer that she said she might withdraw from the 1,500, which would allow the alternate, Slaney, an opportunity to compete in her third Olympics at 33. She finished fourth Sunday in 4:05.43, less than a second behind third-place Suzy Hamilton’s personal record time of 4:04.53.

There is no such reprieve available to Scott, a three-time Olympian who finished 13th in the 1,500-meter final. The only runner who finished behind him was one of the favorites, Joe Falcon, who fell on the first lap and interfered with Scott. Falcon protested, but it was rejected in an appropriate conclusion to a meet that was overshadowed by interference outside arbiters, including the Supreme Court.

* CLEARED: Germany’s Katrin Krabbe is allowed to compete in Barcelona. C10