BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 12 : Dave Nearly Emulates Dan With Foul-Up in Shotput : Decathlon: One official raises red flag for a third foul but is overruled, and gold-medal favorite comes back with personal best to stay in running.

All the hurdles cleared, jumps made and races run on the Olympic decathlon’s opening day were overshadowed by one shotput--one shotput more than normal.

Dave Johnson of Pomona, a pre-meet favorite for the gold medal, remained in contention Wednesday only through an extremely rare, and strange, set of circumstances while he was in the shotput circle.

First he fouled out, then he was reinstated, and then he came back with a personal best of 50 feet 1 3/4 inches on his extra throw.

“I have never seen anything like what happened there,” Johnson said. “I can’t remember it happening.”

The bizarre turn of events was set in motion when Johnson fouled on his first two shotputs. One more miscue meant no points in the event--and death to his medal chances.

The decathlete strode into the circle, a pensive look on his face. He paused a moment, cradled the shot against his neck, spun and let fly.

It landed with a thud about 44 feet away, and an official was trotting to measure it when a red flag--signifying a third, disqualifying foul--belatedly waved in the air. A judge ruled he stepped on the toe barrier at the front of the circle, a foul just as if he strayed from the circle.

Johnson stood in the circle, hands on hips, his mouth agape. He was thinking decidedly eerie thoughts about how much his own fate resembled that of rival Dan O’Brien, who failed to make the U.S. team when he failed to clear any height in the pole vault at the Olympic trials.

“Sure that was on my mind,” Johnson said. “It was a tough couple of minutes. I didn’t want to go out that way.”

He remained in the circle staring at the officials, composing himself until he trusted himself to speak.

“I asked him, ‘Are you sure?’ ” Johnson said. “He said, ‘Yes.’ But there were two officials watching the toe board, and one saw it as a foul, the other saw it as a fair throw. Fortunately, the larger and more powerful referee saw it and said it was a fair throw.”

The men were actually about the same size, but it was a referee who overruled a judge in a quick, quiet conference.

Suddenly, Johnson had one more chance. He didn’t disappoint, throwing his best ever. More important, his medal hopes came back from the dead.

Three nations--France, Spain and Czechoslovakia--protested the special exemption given Johnson, but a seven-member International Amateur Athletic Federation review panel rejected the complaints even as Johnson was competing in the high jump.

There was other news in the decathlon--such as Paul Meier of Germany scoring more than 900 points on three of the day’s five events to lead at the halfway point with 4,510. There was Robert Zmelik of Czechoslovakia long-jumping 25-10--point-wise, the best performance of the day--to hold second place halfway through. But those things happen all the time, and what happened to Johnson didn’t.

“I thought I was out. Devastation,” Johnson said. “If I’d lost, it would have been the shot heard round the world.”

Meanwhile, Meier had a strong first day, and throughout the five events was never lower than third. Zmelik, fourth after the 100-meter dash, led after two events on the strength of his long-jump performance. Meier was in third after the shot, then moved into the lead with a 7 1/2-foot high jump. He finished with a 48.33 clocking in the 400. Antonio Penalver of Spain, the crowd roaring in support of his every run, jump and throw, shadowed the leaders before ending up third with 4,357.

If Johnson’s near-disaster bothered him, he didn’t show it during the rest of the competition, save for starting the high jump at an unusually low 6-5 1/2 to make sure he cleared a height, any height.

He completed that event by jumping 6-6 3/4, then running the 400 in 49.76. At the end of the day, he was in ninth place with 4,154 points. Johnson, a strong second-day man, predicted he would finish in the 8,600-8,700 point range. He was ninth from the shotput through the 400, and might have been higher but for a subpar 100.

“Everything went well, but not extremely well,” he said in what was perhaps the understatement of the year. “Tomorrow, I just want to go out and do what I did at the trials.”

Thursday’s five events are the 100-meter high hurdles, discus throw, pole vault, javelin and 1,500-meter run.