BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 7 : Johnson, Budd Pieterse Are Not Golden Oldies : Track and field: Canadian sprinter is off the pace in qualifying for the 100. South African nearly collides with Plumer.

Like ghosts of Olympics past, they entered Montjuic Stadium on Friday for the first day of track and field competition, bringing back the sport’s most haunting memories from the last two Summer Games.

For Ben Johnson and Zola Budd Pieterse, it was a different time and a different place with different expectations, and yet, so much must have seemed the same.

As reporters shouted questions and stuck out microphones, and photographers pushed each other to get positions near them, the athletes escaped into the night without offering much more of themselves than they had left on the track, Johnson to return another day and Pieterse . . . well, who knows?

Johnson, the 30-year-old Canadian who won the 100-meter gold medal in world-record time four years ago at Seoul, only to have both medal and record stripped after he failed a drug test, was one of 16 sprinters who survived two rounds Friday to advance to today’s semifinals.

His times suggest that this will be the end of the line for him, but if he can summon a bit more of the speed that once made him the world’s fastest man, he will move into the final 1 hour 15 minutes later. That would be a triumph, considering that he lost two years of his prime while under suspension.

Pieterse is too young at 26 to suggest that her best days are gone. But perhaps the Olympics will serve as a stage only for her humiliation.

Certainly they were in 1984 in Los Angeles, where she was blamed for the collision with Mary Decker Slaney in the 3,000-meter final. While Slaney writhed in pain in the infield, Pieterse continued to a chorus of boos from the Coliseum crowd.

She was Zola Budd then, a barefoot South African teen-ager who took advantage of her heritage to gain British citizenship and run in the Olympics. Now she is a more mature, married woman who represents her own country and even a shoe company. But from a competitive standpoint, these Games were even less successful than those of 1984 for her.

Pieterse did not advance past the first round of the 3,000 meters this time, finishing 25th among the 33 runners attempting to gain the 12 berths in Sunday’s final. She was ninth among 11 women who finished her heat, running 9:07.10, almost 20 seconds behind the winner.

Earlier in the heat, while she was still running with the pack, there was considerable contact that could have resulted in a fall.

Was she thinking of 1984?

Pieterse would not say, quickly donning her sweatsuit and leaving the stadium without so much as glancing at the media.

But the U.S. runner in that heat, PattiSue Plumer of Palo Alto, could not put Pieterse and Slaney out of her mind.

“There was a lot of jostling with Zola,” Plumer said. “I said, ‘Hey, watch out.’ I wanted to say, ‘Hey, this is really stupid.’

“I don’t think it was intentional. She couldn’t maintain the pace and started to slow down. When people do that, it affects the pace of the race. She tried to get to the front, then slowed down. She went to the front again, then slowed down again. At that point, she just quit. I ran right up her back.”

Plumer was relieved to finish third in 8:47.58, qualifying for the final. Another U.S. runner, Shelly Steely of Albuquerque, N.M., also advanced.

“I had flashbacks of ’84 with Mary,” Plumer said. “I said, ‘Oh God, it’s going to be me this time.’ It wasn’t a Mary Plumer said. “I said, ‘Oh God, it’s going to be me this time.’ It wasn’t a Mary Slaney curse; it was an American curse.”

In comparison to Pieterse, Johnson was effusive.

When a reporter called his name, he looked up and said: “What?”

Otherwise, he responded only to a Canadian Olympic Assn. press officer, telling her: “I’m tired. I’m exhausted. I just want to go home (to the athletes’ village). So far, so good. But the race isn’t over.”

Few expected Johnson even to be in the 100 meters here, much less in the semifinals after his languid comeback from suspension. Until the Canadian Olympic trials at Montreal in June, his best time since 1988 had been 10.31 a place on the Canadian Olympic team and some respect.

He did not approach that Friday, running 10.55 in the first round and 10.30 in the next. Nine others ran faster in the second, including all three U.S. sprinters: Leroy Burrell of Houston (10.08), Mark Witherspoon of Houston (10.19) and Dennis Mitchell of Gainesville, Fla. (10.22).

All three U.S. women sprinters also advanced to today’s semifinals in the 100 meters--Evelyn Ashford of Walnut in 11.13, Gail Devers of Los Angeles in 11.17 and Gwen Torrence of Decatur, Ga., in 11.17.

When Johnson finished for the night, the first man to congratulate him was Mitchell. They trained together for a few weeks last spring in Florida and became friends.

“Who can tell?” Mitchell said when asked if he could guess Johnson’s thoughts. “Ben can’t tell you what I’m thinking right now. Everybody has an inner person. That’s who we’re talking to now.”

What was Mitchell’s inner person saying to him?

“This is exciting, fun and nerve-racking,” he said. “That’s what makes sprinting sprinting.”

And the Olympics the Olympics.

Track and Field Medalists

* MEN’S SHOTPUT

Gold: Mike Stulce (United States)

Silver: Jim Doehring (United States)

Bronze: Vyacheslav Lykho (CIS)

* MEN’S 20-KILOMETER WALK

Gold: Daniel Plaza (Spain)

Silver: Guillaume LeBlanc (Canada)

Bronze: Giovanni DeBenedictis (Italy)