Barcelona ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 13 : Young Shatters His Goal : Track and field: He breaks Moses’ record and wins gold in 400 hurdles in 46.78.

Kevin Young, who like everyone else in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles has long lived in the shadow of Edwin Moses, believed that it was possible he could emerge from it Thursday. The handwriting, in fact, was on the wall.

When he arrived last week in his room at the athletes’ village, he wrote “46.89” on a sheet of paper and taped it to the wall. That was the time he believed he was capable of running in the Olympic Games.

That would not only break Moses’ nine-year-old world record of 47.02 seconds, but would earn him a place in track and field history as the first man to break the 47-second mark in the event.

Young, a former UCLA hurdler from Los Angeles, did not run 46.89 in the final Thursday at Montjuic Stadium.

He ran an even faster 46.78, a time that so astonished him, he dropped to his knees on the track when he saw it flashing on the scoreboard, and cried.

“Mr. Moses, it’s fortunate I had you to pave the way for me,” said Young, 25, sending a message to the man who dominated the sport for more than a decade. “You’ll always be one of my heroes.”

In a race that turned out to be his last, Moses earned an Olympic bronze medal four years ago at Seoul after winning gold medals in 1976 and ’84. Young finished fourth in that 1988 race.

But he entered these Games as the favorite, a status that was enhanced when he ran 47.63 in Wednesday’s semifinals and world champion Samuel Matete of Zambia was disqualified for running out of his lane.

Running in Lane 4 Thursday, Young quickly made up the stagger on the hurdlers ahead of him and was never threatened. Runner-up Winthrop Graham of Jamaica finished almost a second behind in 47.66. Britain’s Kriss Akabusi was third in 47.82.

“We all listen for each other,” Young said. “You can’t really turn around and see what’s going on. I didn’t hear anything but the crowd.”

Young’s time might have been even more impressive if he had not hit the 10th and last hurdle--”I clobbered it”--and then raised his right arm in triumph 10 meters before the finish--”That’s all I ever wanted to do.”

“It was easy out there today,” he said.

His coach, UCLA assistant John Smith, had told him it would be. It was the second gold medal of the Games for one of Smith’s athletes. Quincy Watts of Inglewood won the 400 meters Wednesday.

“The goal this year always was to have him be the first under 47 seconds,” Smith said of Young.

Young stepped to the top level of the victory stand to hear “The Star-Spangled Banner” while wearing a Dodger cap. It will be the closest that team comes to being associated with a winner this year.

Track and Field Medalists

* MEN’S 400-METER HURDLES

GOLD: Kevin Young (United States)

SILVER: Winthrop Graham (Jamaica)

BRONZE: Kriss Akabusi (Britain)