SUMMER GAMES SPOTLIGHT : BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS : ARCHER RESENTS PRIME-TIME SHOOTING

Jay Barrs has a beef. He’s the best archer in the United States, a 30-year-old athlete from Mesa, Ariz., who won a gold medal in 1988 at Seoul and now would like another one. But the parameters of his competition have been changed.

“They’ve screwed it all up for TV,” Barrs said Saturday after qualifying 12th in the 30-meter individual competition.

Eight years ago in Los Angeles, the 30-meter champion was decided after each competitor shot 288 arrows. The best score won, pure and simple.

“You know the best--or at least the most consistent--guy is going to win then,” Barrs said.

In Seoul, they loosened it a little, creating an elimination tournament in which a certain number of low scores were dropped at every level. But this year, it has turned into the Olympic equivalent of professional bowling’s Saturday afternoon eliminations.

Thirty-two archers qualified Saturday. Beginning Monday, those 32 will participate in one-on-one eliminations (No. 1 vs. No. 32, etc.), with each shooting 12 arrows.

“So the deal is No. 32 can come walking out, not giving a damn, shoot 12 arrows and beat No. 1,” Barrs said. “It’s crazy. It’s worse than bowling. If you finish first in the qualifications in bowling, you’re guaranteed first or second place. This is like playing 36 holes of golf and then having a one-hole playoff.”

There is one advantage for Barrs. The format places enormous pressure on each archer. Shooting only 12 arrows allows no room for error.

Pressure is “definitely a factor,” said Barrs, who is the walking definition of loose. “Just have to chill out.”

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.