A Sport-by-Sport Look at the U.S. Olympic Team

With the exception of 1984, when the Soviets and their satellites boycotted, the United States has not led the medal standings in the Summer Olympics since 1968 at Mexico City. But because of the disintegration of government-sponsored sports systems in two former countries, the Soviet Union and East Germany, the United States could challenge here for No. 1.

A look at U.S. hopes in each of 28 medal sports:

Archery

Jay Barrs of Mesa, Ariz., known as the “rock ‘n’ roll archer” because of the music he listens to between rounds, will attempt to defend the individual title he won in 1988.

He lost in the U.S. trials to four-time Olympian Rick McKinney of Gilbert, Ariz., but that merely shows the depth of a men’s team that finished second at Seoul to South Korea, which is favored to repeat.

After finishing third in 1988, the U.S. women figure to win another team medal. But South Korea, featuring defending individual champion Kim Soo Nyung, is a prohibitive favorite to again win the gold.

The U.S. women’s best hope for an individual medal is Denise Parker of South Jordan, Utah, who already is a two-time Olympian at 18. An all-state high school basketball player last season, she is the defending junior world champion.

Badminton

Chris Jogis of Manhattan Beach is a six-time men’s national champion whose serve has been timed at 140 m.p.h., but he is ranked 69th in the world in a sport dominated by Asians.

Among the men’s singles favorites are China’s Zhao Jianhua, who came back from battles with pleurisy and typhoid fever to win last year’s world championship, Indonesia’s Ardy Wiranta and Malaysia’s Rashid Sidek.

Joy Kitzmiller of Manhattan Beach is the highest-ranked U.S. women’s singles player at No. 88. She has fared better in doubles, in which she and partner Linda French of Elmhurst, Ill., are ranked 31st.

Baseball

In assembling teams for demonstration tournaments in 1984 and ‘88, the United States selected several collegians who later became outstanding major leaguers. Among them were Mark McGwire, Will Clark and Barry Larkin in 1984 and Jim Abbott, Robin Ventura and Andy Benes in 1988.

Now that baseball is a medal sport for the first time, some players on the 1992 team, among them third baseman Phil Nevin of Cal State Fullerton, outfielder Jeffrey Hammonds of Stanford and catcher Charles Johnson of Miami, are considered to have that sort of potential.

They are not, however, expected to have gold medals to go along with their big league signing bonuses. The favorite is Cuba, which boycotted the last two Summer Olympics but, otherwise, has dominated amateur baseball.

Although such Cuban players as third baseman Omar Linares and outfielder Orestes Kindelan no doubt could have been successful in the major leagues if their government had allowed them to go north, the Cubans probably do not have as much talent as the U.S. team.

But they are older, considerably more experienced at playing together and motivated. In exhibition games this summer, the United States was 2-5 against the Cubans. “To them, this is the World Series,” says Mississippi State’s Ron Polk, who coached the United States in last year’s Pan American Games.

Basketball

What more needs to be said about the U.S. men’s team? Featuring Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley, Larry Bird, and other top pros, it is the greatest team ever put together in the sport.

Every other team is playing for the silver medal. That includes Lithuania with Golden State’s Sarunas Marciulionis and Spanish League center Arvidas Sabonis, Croatia with New Jersey’s Drazen Petrovic and Italian League guard Toni Kukoc (considered the world’s best player outside the NBA), the Unified Team, representing the Commonwealth of Independent States, with Atlanta’s Alexander Volkov, and Germany with Indiana’s Detlef Schrempf.

Like the men’s team, 11 of the 12 members of the U.S. women’s teams are professionals, although they have to play in Europe or Japan because there is no viable league at home.

Before last year, the U.S. women would have been almost as strong a favorite to win the gold medal as the men. But their seven-year, 46-game winning streak was ended at the Pan American Games in Cuba, where they lost twice and finished third.

They have a new coach, Teresa Grentz of Rutgers, and a renewed commitment this year, although the team leaders, former Georgia teammates Teresa Edwards and Katrina McClain, are the same.

Expected to challenge are the Unified Team, which has high scoring Natalia Zasulskaia, and Brazil, the Pan American Games champion that includes the shooting star Hortencia Fatima Marcari de Oliva.

Boxing

Eric Griffin of Broussard, La., lost an opportunity to make the U.S. Olympic team in 1988 because of a positive drug test for marijuana. But instead of turning professional, he decided to give himself another chance in 1992.

He so far has made the most of it, winning three world championships as a light flyweight. He is the only U.S. boxer ranked first in the world in one of the 12 amateur weight classes.

But U.S. coaches also have high hopes for Oscar De La Hoya, a lightweight from East Los Angeles who says he has learned from his only international loss in the opening bout of the 1991 World Championships, and flyweight Tim Austin of Cincinnati. He recently defeated Hungarian world champion Istvan Kovacs.

Besides Griffin, the only other U.S. boxer to reach the finals in the World Championships was light welterweight Vernon Forrest of Marquette, Mich. The third U.S. medalist was super-heavyweight Larry Donald of Cincinnati, who won a bronze.

The Cubans, considered the world’s best amateur boxers, return to the Olympics for the first time since 1980 with four favorites: welterweight Juan Hernandez, light middleweight Juan Lemus, heavyweight Felix Savon and super-heavyweight Roberto Balado.

Canoe-Kayak

With the return of whitewater, or slalom, events to the Olympics, the United States could emerge as one of this sport’s dominant countries.

Two canoeists from Bethesda, Md., Jon Lugbill and Davey Hearn, accounted for every men’s individual world championship between 1979 and 1990.

Kayaker Dana Chladek, who trains with Lugbill and Hearn at Bethesda, finished second in the women’s individual world championship last year. Chladek is a Czechoslovakian native who came to the United States when she was 5 with her parents, who paddled for the Czech national team. Her husband, Thierry Humeau, is a French canoeist.

In flatwater events, kayaker Greg Barton of Newport Beach, who was born with club feet, will attempt to defend the titles he won in 1988 at Seoul in the K-1 (singles) and K-2 (doubles) 1,000 meters. He finished second in the K-1 1,000 last year to Norway’s Knut Hollman, the favorite here. Barton again will team with Norman Bellingham of Washington in the K-2.

Cycling

Four-time world champion Connie Paraskevin-Young of Indianapolis, who finished third in the match sprint in 1988, giving the United States its only medal in the sport, is competing in her fourth Olympics, her second as a summer athlete. She competed as a speedskater in the 1980 and ’84 Winter Games.

But the best chance for a U.S. gold medal may ride with Rebecca Twigg of San Diego, who won a silver medal in the 1984 women’s road race and 10 national titles before retiring four years ago to become a computer programmer.

She returned to competition last October and upset two-time national champion Janie Eickhoff in the individual pursuit at the U.S. trials. That allows Twigg, 29, to resume her longtime rivalry here with France’s Jeannie Longo, who also will compete in the road race.

Lance Armstrong of Austin, Tex., may be the best U.S. man on the roads since Greg LeMond. Armstrong, 20, has been called the world’s most dominating amateur. Competing against pros, he finished 11th in last year’s World Championships and became the first American in 20 years to win the Settimana Bergamasca, a 10-day Italian stage race. He will turn professional after the Olympics.

Diving

Four-time Olympian Greg Louganis, who won springboard and platform gold medals in 1984 and ‘88, has retired, leaving behind a U.S. team that is long on age but short on experience. For the first time since 1948, the United States has eight divers who have never competed in the Olympics.

But Louganis’ inspiration is still with the team in the person of Mark Lenzi of Fredericksburg, Va. He gave up wrestling to become a diver after watching Louganis in 1984 and is considered among the medal contenders on the springboard. Another is his teammate, Kent Ferguson of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., who won the world championship in the event last year.

The man they both have to beat is China’s Tan Liangde, who finished second to Louganis in the last two Olympics. No problem, Lenzi said. “When the pressure’s on, I’ve seen the Chinese completely land on their backs. You put a little pressure on them, they’ll choke.”

That may be the only hope for the rest of the world in the three other events against the Chinese.

Gao Min, who won the gold medal in 1988 in the women’s springboard, returns. So does Yanmei Xu, who won the silver medal on the platform at Seoul, but she may not fare better here because of the emergence of her teammate, 1991 world champion Fu Mingxia. Fu will celebrate her 14th birthday a week after the Games end. The world’s two best male platform divers also are Chinese--Sun Shuwei and Xiong Ni.

Karen LaFace of Pittsburgh, a springboard specialist who missed six weeks of workouts earlier this year after suffering injuries in an auto accident, is considered the most likely U.S. woman to contend for a medal.

Equestrian

The United States, which won the silver medal in team jumping in 1988, appeared certain to contend for another medal until earlier this year. Then Joe Fargis, who won the gold medal in individual jumping in 1984, broke his leg, and Greg Best’s horse, Gem Twist, refused to clear a fence at the trials, eliminating both of them.

A new member of the jumping team is Michael Matz of Collegeville, Pa., a survivor of the 1989 crash of a United Airlines DC-10 in Iowa. He rescued two children from the wreckage.

Carol Lavell of Fairfax, Vt., leads one of the best U.S. dressage teams in years. She was exempted from qualifying so that she could continue to compete in Europe. Her fourth-place finish in this year’s World Cup was the highest dressage finish ever for a U.S. rider.

In the three-day event, which includes cross-country, dressage and show jumping, New Zealand’s Mark Todd will try for his third consecutive individual gold medal. Among the challengers is Mike Plumb of Hamilton, Mass., who has won six medals in five Olympics since 1964. His son, Charlie, almost qualified for the 1992 team.

Fencing

There are some new faces on the U.S. team, led by Nick Bravin, 20, of Los Angeles. He was the only American to win in an 8-1 defeat inflicted by world champion Cuba in the 1991 Pan American Games team foil championship match.

But the nucleus of the team consists of veterans such as five-time Olympian Peter Westbrook of New York and three-time Olympians Robert Marx of South Bend, Ind., and Michael Lofton of New York.

Among the U.S. women, foilist Caitlin Bilodeaux of Concord, Mass., is considered the best after her 11th-place finish in 1988. She is married to Canadian sabre fencer Jean-Marie Banos, who coaches her.

Of all Olympic and world championship medals, 75% have been won by three countries: Italy, Hungary and the former Soviet Union. The United States’ only Olympic gold medalist was Albertson Von Post, who teamed with two Cubans to win the team foil championship in 1904.

Field Hockey

Neither the U.S. men’s nor women’s teams qualified. Germany and Pakistan figure to be the class of the men’s field, and the Australian women are expected to successfully defend the championship they won at Seoul.

Gymnastics

The U.S. women have the most talented team in their history, even deeper than the one that finished second to Romania in 1984. For example, Kim Zmeskal of Houston, who in 1991 became the first American woman to win the all-around world championship, did not win in the U.S. trials, finishing second to Shannon Miller of Edmond, Okla.

“It is the beginning of a new order,” said U.S. Coach Bela Karolyi, who trains Zmeskal and another potential medal contender, Ugandan-born Betty Okino of Elmhurst, Ill.

But the United States will have more challenging competition here than in Los Angeles because of the presence of the Unified Team, former Soviets who have dominated the sport. With the exception of their 1984 boycott, they have won every team gold medal since 1952. The 1989 world champion and 1991 runner-up, Svetlana Boguinskaia, is not even the team’s No. 1 gymnast, having lost that distinction to Tatiana Gutsu.

There is no new order in the men’s competition. By any other name, the former Soviets are expected to continue their dominance. They are led by the world’s two best gymnasts, Grigori Misutin, the 1991 world all-around champion, and the runner-up, Vitaly Scherbo.

The U.S. men are expected to improve significantly on their 11th-place finish at Seoul. Eighth in the World Championships in 1989 and fifth in 1991, they could challenge Japan, Germany and South Korea for the team bronze medal. The team includes two UCLA gymnasts, Scott Keswick and Chris Waller.

The Bulgarians and former Soviets should remain at the top in rhythmic gymnastics. In last year’s World Championships, the United States finished 14th.

Judo

Four-time Olympian Mike Swain of San Jose shared a bronze medal in the lightweight division in 1988, moving up in the standings after a British athlete was disqualified because of a positive drug test. He says that he can win a medal outright this time, although his competition includes two-time world champion Toshihiko Koga of Japan.

Japan, birthplace of the sport, was so disappointed after winning only one medal at Seoul that it rededicated its efforts. Last year, the Japanese won six medals, three golds, in the World Championships. The best U.S. finish there was a second place by middleweight Joey Wanag of San Jose. Half-lightweight James Pedro of Lynn, Mass., finished third.

Women will compete for Olympic medals for the first time. Karen Briggs of Great Britain is a four-time world champion and six-time European champion who underwent six operations five years ago to repair her leg, which was broken in five places.

The U.S. team is led by Jo Quiring of Littleton, Colo., the seventh-place half-lightweight in last year’s World Championships, and Lynn Roethke of Fond du Lac, Wis., who was second as a half-middleweight when women’s judo was a demonstration sport at Seoul.

Modern Pentathlon

Michael Gostigian of Newtown Square, Pa., was the highest-ranking U.S. athlete in last year’s World Championships with a ninth-place finish, but the team’s best medal hope here may be Rob Stull of Austin, Tex. A three-time Olympian, he competed in both the modern pentathlon and fencing in 1988.

In a sport dominated by Eastern Europeans, the reigning world champion is Poland’s Arkad Skrzypaszek.

Rowing

If you can’t beat them, hire their coaches. That is what the United States has done, enlisting the services of Igor Grinko, who coached the Soviet Union for 11 years, to work with the men’s scullers, and Hartmut Buschbacher, who coached the East Germans, to work with the women’s sweep team.

The U.S. men’s four without coxswain is among the favorites after finishing second in the 1991 World Championships. One of the men in that boat is Thomas Bohrer of Babylon, N.Y., a silver medalist at Seoul. He was a baseball player at the Florida Institute of Technology. Their primary competition is expected to be Australia’s “Oarsome Foursome.”

The U.S. women’s four without coxswain also won a silver medal in last year’s World Championships. Two members of that team, Stephanie Maxwell-Pearson of Somerville, N.J., and Anna Seaton of Manhattan, Kan., also won silver medals at that competition in 1990 in pairs without coxswain.

Anne Marden of Concord, Mass., who finished second in single sculls in 1988, returns to the Olympics. She now lives in England, where she trains on the Thames River.

In the men’s pairs with coxswain, Italian brothers Giuseppe and Carmine Abbagnale will attempt to win their third consecutive gold medal. They grew up in Pompeii and rowed on the Gulf of Naples.

Shooting

Fritz Allen, a ski-cap manufacturer from Vail, Colo., could challenge for a medal in the men’s running target event. Other contenders include Bob Foth of Colorado Springs, Colo., in men’s rifle and Connie Petracek of Nashville, Tenn., and Libby Callahan of Upper Marlboro, Md., in women’s pistol.

Shooters from former communist countries, particularly the former Soviet Union, continue to hold an advantage over competitors from the West, although the Italians still dominate trap and skeet shooting.

Soccer

In the absence of such traditional powers as Germany, Brazil and Argentina, the United States has emerged as a legitimate medal contender in a tournament for players under 23.

It has a daunting opening-game challenge against favorite Italy, which has several young stars from the Italian League. Among them are Alessandro Melli, who scored five goals last season for Parma, and Renato Buso, who is expected to replace one of the world’s best forwards, Gianluca Vialli, for Sampdoria of Genoa next season.

But the United States has its own stars in the making, including goalkeeper Brad Friedel of UCLA. Five other UCLA players are on the 20-man roster.

Sweden figures to be among the other contenders because of forward Tomas Brolin, who scored three goals to tie for the lead in the European Championships. During the regular season, he plays alongside Melli at Parma.

Swimming

How’s this for confidence?

“We feel we have a chance to win every event,” said the U.S. women’s coach, Mark Schubert.

Whereas Janet Evans of Placentia was the only individual gold medalist for the U.S. women at Seoul, where she won three events, there are four favorites this year.

They are Summer Sanders of Roseville, Calif., and Jenny Thompson of Dover, N.H., who each could win four gold medals, along with 16-year-old Anita Nall of Towson, Md., and Evans. Among other contenders are Nicole Haislett of St. Petersburg, Fla., Crissy Ahmann-Leighton of Tucson and Janie Wagstaff of Mission Hills, Kan.

“We look as strong (as) or stronger than we ever have going into the Olympics on the women’s side, at least in modern swimming history,” said Dennis Pursley, national team director.

The woman most likely to interrupt the U.S. women’s march to the top level of the victory platform is Hungary’s Kristina Egerszegi, who is expected to win medals in three individual events. The Chinese women, who appeared two years ago on the verge of replacing the former East Germans as the dominant force in the sport, have not developed.

Led by Matt Biondi of Castro Valley, Calif., who won five gold medals in 1988; Melvin Stewart of Charlotte, N.C., and Mike Barrowman of Potomac, Md., the U.S. men also are deep in talent. Others to watch include Hungary’s Tamas Darnyi, Australia’s Kieren Perkins and Spain’s Martin Zubero.

Zubero is from Jacksonville, Fla., and attends the University of Florida, but he has dual citizenship that allows him to swim for Spain. He is perhaps the host country’s best hope for a gold medal.

Synchronized Swimming

The Josephson twins, Karen and Sarah of Concord, Calif., have not lost since before the Seoul Olympics. Their competition is expected to come from another pair of twins, Vicky and Penny Vilagos of Canada. They retired for five years before returning two years ago.

Sylvie Frechette of Canada and Kristen Babb-Sprague of Pleasanton, Calif., will resume their solo rivalry here. In the last two major competitions, Frechette won by less than one-tenth of a point.

Table Tennis

The Chinese and South Koreans won nine of the 12 medals in 1988, but Sweden since has emerged as a power on the men’s side. The Asians, particularly the Chinese, have maintained their advantage on the women’s side. The United States’ leading players from 1988, Sean O’Neill and Korean native Insook Bushan, return, but neither is a medal contender.

Team Handball

Leora (Sam) Jones, a former basketball player at East Carolina University and the second-leading scorer in the 1988 tournament, leads a U.S. women’s team that has an outside chance to win a medal. The U.S. women beat an excellent team of former Soviets in February. The U.S. men failed to qualify. The Unified Team is favored, but Spain should benefit from a boisterous home crowd.

Tennis

If not quite a major, the Olympics is more than merely another stop on the tour. Entered are some of the top professionals, including defending champion Steffi Graf of Germany.

Sure to be a challenger is hometown favorite Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, who is difficult to beat on the red clay here. The U.S. women entered in singles are Jennifer Capriati of Saddlebrook, Fla., Mary Joe Fernandez of Miami and Zina Garrison of Houston.

Martina Navratilova, Monica Seles and Gabriela Sabatini are ineligible because they did not play in last year’s Federation Cup.

Emilio Sanchez will play here, but his route to a medal probably will be much more difficult than his sister’s. French Open champion Jim Courier of Dade City, Fla., Sweden’s Stefan Edberg and Germany’s Boris Becker are in the field. Other U.S. singles players are Pete Sampras of Bradenton, Fla., and Michael Chang of Coto de Caza.

Track and Field

Carl Lewis will be in only one event, the long jump. World record-holders Butch Reynolds, Randy Barnes, Florence Griffith Joyner, Edwin Moses and Roger Kingdom will not be here at all. But the U.S. team figures to be at least as effective as it was at Seoul.

That is particularly true in the men’s sprints, where the United States has Dennis Mitchell of Gainesville, Fla., Leroy Burrell of Houston and Mark Witherspoon of Houston in the 100, Michael Johnson of Waco, Tex., and Mike Marsh of Los Angeles in the 200 and Danny Everett of Santa Monica, Steve Lewis of Fremont, Calif., and Quincy Watts of Inglewood in the 400.

In the field events, the duel to watch is Lewis vs. Mike Powell of Alta Loma in the long jump.

The question in men’s track is whether the Africans, dominant in the distance events, can become a factor in the sprints. Nigerian Davidson Ezinwa, who runs for Azusa Pacific, has the fastest time in the world this year in the 100. Johnson’s biggest threat in the 200 may be Frank Fredericks of Namibia.

The U.S. women don’t have anyone as fast as Griffith Joyner. But no one else does, either. Gwen Torrence of Decatur, Ga., could duplicate Griffith Joyner’s 100-200 double. Jackie Joyner-Kersee of Canoga Park is favored to repeat in the heptathlon, but it will be no suprise if she loses her long jump title to Germany’s Heike Drechsler.

Former Jamaican Sandra Farmer-Patrick of Pflugerville, Tex., will compete in the Olympics for the United States for the first time and is favored to win the 400-meter intermediate hurdles. Her husband, David, is considered a contender in the same event on the men’s side.

Volleyball

The U.S. men will try to become the first team to win three consecutive gold medals. Karch Kiraly decided to play on the beach this summer, leaving Steve Timmons of Newport Beach as the only veteran of the 1984 and ’88 teams to return. Joining him are five of his ’88 teammates: Bob Ctvrtlik of Long Beach, Jeff Stork of Topanga Canyon, Scott Fortune of Laguna Beach, Eric Sato of Santa Monica and Doug Partie of Santa Barbara.

Cuba and Italy are considered to have the best chances to prevent a U.S. three-peat.

Led by Caren Kemner of Quincy, Ill., and Kim Oden of Irvine, the U.S. women have improved considerably since their seventh-place finish at Seoul. They were fourth in last year’s World Cup and could contend for a medal, along with the Unified Team, Cuba and China.

All 12 members of the men’s team are Southern Californians, and nine of the women are from the state.

Water Polo

The United States lost in the championship game in the last two Olympics to Yugoslavia, but the Yugoslavs are not here to defend their titles because of sanctions against teams from what’s left of that country by the United Nations.

That deprives the Americans of an opportunity to redeem themselves, which they believed they would do after winning last year’s world championship.

Two members of the 1984 and ’88 teams, Terry Schroeder of Agoura Hills and goalkeeper Craig Wilson of Davis, Calif., are back. Wilson, who plays professionally in Barcelona, says that Spain will be the No. 1 challenger because of the home-pool advantage and the presence of Manuel Estiarte.

Weightlifting

Two of the best U.S. lifters, Mario Martinez of San Francisco and Mark Henry of Galveston, Tex., are in the same super-heavyweight division. Although the 367-pound Henry, 21, is believed to have potential, neither is considered a medal contender here.

Soviets won five of the 10 divisions in 1988 and could equal that here while lifting for the Unified Team. The most interesting competition could be in the super-heavyweight division, where defending champion Alexander Kurlovich will be challenged by Leonid Taranenko, his Unified Team teammate.

Wrestling

For the first time, the United States could challenge the former Soviets in freestyle wrestling.

Both U.S. gold medalists from 1988, John Smith of Stillwater, Okla., in the 136.5-pound class, and Kenny Monday of Stillwater in the 163-pound class, are favored to repeat. A 1984 champion, Bruce Baumgartner of Cambridge Springs, Pa., could also return to the top level of the victory stand.

The only U.S. wrestler who has won two Olympic gold medals is George Mehnert, in 1904 and ’08.

Eastern Europeans continue to dominate Greco-Roman wrestling, but the United States is improving. Shawn Sheldon of Albany, N.Y., in the 114.5-pound class and Matt Ghaffari of Chandler, Ariz., in the 286-pound class, may contend for medals. Ghaffari was born in Tehran, Iran.

Yachting

The United States won five medals in eight events in 1988 and could fare almost as well here, where there are two new events. The teams of Kevin Mahaney of Bangor, Me.; Jim Brady of Annapolis, Md., and Doug Kern of Austin, Tex., in Soling class and Mark Reynolds of San Diego and Hal Haenel of Los Angeles in Star class are particularly strong.

Reynolds and Haenel were second in 1988 after a broken mast prevented them from completing the final race.

J.J. Isler of La Jolla and Pamela Healy of Point Richmond, Calif., won the 470 class world championship earlier this year.