SUMMER GAMES SPOTLIGHT : BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS : JUST GET THEM TO THE RING ON TIME

Question: Why would the fire chief of Edmonds, Wash., memorize every stop on the Barcelona subway system?

Answer: Because he’s afraid if another U.S. boxer misses a bus to the boxing tournament, he would be put in a maximum security prison.

That’s the hot seat Buzz Buzalsky sits on this week. He’s the team manager of the U.S. Olympic boxing team, and among his tasks is to see to it that boxers arrive at their venue on time for their bouts.

The background: The team manager of the 1988 Olympic team, Wylie Farrier, took most of the heat when one of his boxers, middleweight Anthony Hembrick, missed a bus at the athletes village, failed to show for his first bout and was scratched from the Olympics.

It was a world-class foul-up, one that left a boxer heartbroken and a team manager humiliated.

When Buzalsky was named the 1992 team manager, he made sure he accompanied a U.S. team that visited Barcelona in April for a small, dry-run Olympic tournament at the Badalona venue.

“I spent several days on the subway system, memorizing every stop, every possible change of trains,” Buzalsky said Sunday. “I’ve also memorized the bus schedule from the athletes village to the venue. On the subway, it’s 12 stops on the yellow line from the village. We’ll use both buses and the subway, depending on the time of day.”

Said Coach Joe Byrd: “This time, if anybody misses the bus, it’s going to be me.”

This a daily roundup of Olympic-related items from reporters in Barcelona from the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, Baltimore Sun and Hartford Courant, all Times-Mirror newspapers.