BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 9 : SUMMER GAMES SPOTLIGHT : ‘GOOD CHANCE’ FOR LEWIS IN RELAY

Mel Rosen, the U.S. men’s track and field coach, said Mark Witherspoon had not even been lifted onto a stretcher after collapsing on the track the night before in the 100-meter semifinals before a reporter found the coach and asked him about the possibility of Carl Lewis replacing the injured sprinter in the 400-meter relay.

“I’ll tell you what I told him when he asked me about the relay,” Rosen said Sunday. “We’re running it.”

Later, in a statement released by U.S. track and field officials, Rosen said: “There’s a good chance now that Carl Lewis will run the relay. We’ll have to see. James Jett will probably run the first round. The order we practiced with was Mike Marsh, Leroy Burrell, Dennis Mitchell and Lewis. But nothing is final yet. We’ll have to see.”

Witherspoon, who ruptured an Achilles’ tendon, returned home to Houston on Sunday for surgery. He is expected to be sidelined for six months to a year.

* 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.