BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS : LOOK TO THE COUNTRY FOR DECATHLETES

Milt Campbell, two-time decathlon medalist--gold in 1956 at Melbourne and silver in 1952 at Helsinki--says decathletes always come from small towns.

And he says he knows why.

“Bob Mathias (from Tulare, Calif.) was like all of us,” he said. “They go out for track in small towns, and they have to help out in the track meets. You might be a hurdler, and if they have nobody in the sprints, you go over to make some points. You even try the high jump and the long jump.”

You become a decathlete by osmosis, Campbell says.

“I didn’t know what a decathlon was,” said Campbell, who found out as a youth in Plainfield, N.J. “When the coach asked me to try it, I thought it was a banquet someplace. I had never even had a pole vault in my hand.

“I think any decathlete who stuck to one sport could become a champion in it.”

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