SUMMER GAMES SPOTLIGHT : BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 13 : HE HASN’T LET IT GET HIM DOWN

Despite being the boxer with arguably the worst luck in the Olympics, Montell Griffin has suddenly turned into one loose character. At a network broadcast studio on Wednesday for an interview, Griffin strutted around with a toothpick in his mouth and gladly signed autographs for staff members.

“I can get used to this,” Griffin observed.

At one point, a woman asked him to sign over a photo of a man with slicked-back, thinning hair and a forbidding demeanor. “Who is this?” Griffin asked. “Hannibal the Cannibal Lecter?”

It was Spain’s King Juan Carlos. But there was a definite resemblance.

And Thursday, at the news conference after middleweight Chris Byrd’s semifinal victory over Canada’s Chris Johnson, a voice called out from the back of the room: “Has working with Montell Griffin helped you out?”

Without looking up, Byrd began to answer--and then began to laugh. The questioner, of course, was Montell Griffin.

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.