BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 12 : United States’ Banner Day Ends With Tumble : Freestyle wrestling: Americans go 17-2, but Zeke Jones is routed by a North Korean in the gold-medal match. Baumgartner is assured of his third Olympic medal.

Officials of USA Wrestling were calling it the greatest Olympic day ever for American wrestlers.

But you’d never have known it, not by the tears spilling out of a grown man’s eyes, and the long, sorrowful face of a young man from Bloomsburg, Pa.

U.S. freestyle wrestlers had just gone 17-2 for the day, but in their one gold-medal match, in the 114.5-pound class, Larry (Zeke) Jones, the 25-year-old world champion, was taken to school by a fast-starting, quick North Korean.

It was a downbeat finish to a day that had Americans winning matches virtually every 30 minutes--including 286-pounder Bruce Baumgartner, who became the first American to win wrestling medals in three Olympic Games.

But in the end, a pale, lean young man with cauliflower ears was left to explain the difference between gold and silver.

“Well, I was No. 1 in the world last year,” he said, referring to the world title he won in Varna, Bulgaria. “Now I’m No. 2. I’m going in the wrong direction.”

He looked at the silver disk hanging from his neck and added: “But now that I’ve been in an Olympics, the dream I’ve had for 20 years to win an Olympic gold medal is not a dream anymore. Now, it’s a realistic goal. I’ll only be 30 at Atlanta.”

Jones, battling an inflamed, infected left elbow, was blown out of his gold-medal match with Li Hak Son. The final tally was 8-1, but it was 3-0 after 30 seconds, 5-0 with two minutes left.

Li was quicker, faster, seemed much stronger and had a “great” game plan, according to U.S. Coach Bobby Douglas of Iowa State.

“Zeke’s elbow is the size of an orange,” Douglas said. “He showed me a lot tonight. He’s got a big-time infection.”

Douglas knows the pain of coming so close to gold and missing, because he earned a silver medal in the World Championships two decades ago. He stopped talking about Jones in mid-sentence in the interview room, and the tears rolled out of his eyes.

“Zeke’s problem was the elbow and the fact he had a great opponent who had a great match plan. But it’s still a great day. I don’t know of a better day the U.S. has ever had in wrestling in the Olympics.”

Jones, who came out of the match with a mouse under his right eye, said he hurt his elbow while working out the day before the competition began.

“I don’t know what happened, I was on the mat with someone, and the elbow just started hurting,” he said. “It’s been getting bigger every day. I have about 70% range of motion right now. And I’ve been running a fever.

“But that’s not an excuse. I was ready for this match, or I thought I was. You don’t think of pain when you’re competing.”

Jones, who is the assistant wrestling coach at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania, was losing five seconds into the match after Li scored with a single-leg takedown. Li made it 3-0 when he gut-wrenched Jones 30 seconds into the match.

With 2:45 to go, both wrestlers were in a scramble, and Li got another point. It became 5-0 with two minutes left when Li slammed Jones onto the mat.

Baumgartner, 31, assured himself of at least a silver medal when he won three matches Wednesday, the last a 7-0 victory over world champion Andreas Schroder of Germany.

“But I’ve beaten two former world champions here, 7-0 and 3-0, so I’m happy with the way things are going,” said Baumgartner, 1984 gold medalist in Los Angeles and a 1988 silver medalist at Seoul.

Also Wednesday:

--Kendall Cross of Stillwater, Okla., in the 125.5-pound class, pinned Japan’s Keiji Okuyama in a second-round match, making the U.S. 15-1 for the day.

--John Smith, also of Stillwater, Okla., in the 136.5-pound class, defeated Gwang Chol Kim of North Korea.

--Kevin Jackson of Ames, Iowa, in the 180.5-pound class, the reigning world champion, was a 4-3 winner over Robert Kostecki of Poland. Jackson wrestled aggressively and was in fact warned early in the match for poking his fingers into Kostecki’s face.

--Townsend Saunders of Phoenix, in the 149.5-pound class, wrestled Chris Wilson of Canada for seventh place. Saunders won, 6-3.

Wrestling Medalists

FREESTYLE

(114.5 pounds)

GOLD: Li Hak Son (South Korea)

SILVER: Zeke Jones (United States)

BRONZE: Valentin Jordanov (Bulgaria)

(149.5 pounds)

GOLD: Arsen Fadzaev (CIS)

SILVER: Valentin Dotchev Getzov (Bulgaria)

BRONZE: Kosei Akaishi (Japan)

(220 pounds)

GOLD: Leri Khabelov (CIS)

SILVER: Heiko Balz (Germany)

BRONZE: Ali Kayali (Turkey)