BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 15 : Now, Their Silence Is Golden : Track: U.S. sprinters, earlier outspoken and feuding, set world records in men’s 400 and 1,600 relays. Women place first in 400 and second in 1,600.

Some athletes seem to need controversy to fuel their competitive fires. Some seek it out, some create it and some respond to it with performances that bring them outside themselves.

So it must be for American sprinters, who more than anyone else have created controversy at these Olympic Games. Saturday night, they reveled in the aftermath:

--Carl Lewis, who wasn’t supposed to be on it, anchored the U.S. 400-meter relay team to a world record of 37.40 seconds and won his eighth gold medal in three Olympics.

--The members of the U.S. 1,600-meter relay team, who had shunned Michael Johnson, embraced the world’s top-ranked quarter-miler and, with him, set a world record of 2 minutes 55.74 seconds.

--The U.S. women’s relay teams had been quiet until Gwen Torrence opened the floodgates of criticism with drug accusations aimed at her rivals last week. The backlash might have spurred Torrence, who Thursday won the 200 meters. Saturday, she anchored the United States to a gold medal in the 400-meter relay and ran the second leg on the 1,600-meter relay team that earned a silver medal.

It was Lewis’ second gold medal of the 1992 Games, and neither had been a lock.

He beat world record-holder Mike Powell in the long jump Thursday. But as the world record-holder in the 100 meters, Lewis had been sixth at the U.S. trials last month and failed to make the team in an event he had won in the previous two Olympics.

Lewis was considered as a relay alternate but said he did not want to keep someone more deserving off the team. He changed his mind three days later and let the Olympic staff know he wanted to be considered.

Bickering ensued. U.S. Olympic track and field Coach Mel Rosen was mum on his plans. The best team would take the track was the most he would divulge.

When Mark Witherspoon suffered a ruptured Achilles’ tendon in a 100-meter semifinal, there was no doubt that Lewis was on the relay team.

The team did something that surprised the coaches--they called for a baton-passing practice Saturday afternoon. It paid off. Two of the three exchanges in the race were made so well that they almost could not be seen.

“I think we gained ground on the handoff zones,” Dennis Mitchell said.

The sight of Lewis gliding toward the record with his near-perfect technique reminded everyone what an athlete he is. No sprinter could have caught him.

“Carl did something that he has never done before,” Rosen said. “He got a little better stick (baton pass), and he ran like he usually does. At this time of the year, Carl is the fastest guy in the world.”

Immediately after the race, split times were produced from various sources. Lewis was said to have run the fastest relay split in history, 8.74 seconds.

Mike Marsh, Leroy Burrell, Mitchell and Lewis bettered the record of 37.50, set by another U.S. team in last year’s World Championships at Tokyo. It also helped erase the memory of the U.S. 400-meter relay team’s disqualification in the 1988 Seoul Olympics for failing to pass within the zone.

The 1,600-meter relay team had to meet before Saturday night’s final to sort out its difficulties, which centered on Johnson.

Johnson has been No. 1 in the world at 200 and 400 meters, a rare double. He chose to run only the 200 last year at Tokyo, and he won. But because he didn’t enter the 400, Johnson was not allowed to run on the 1,600-meter relay team there. The United States lost to the British, and it was not easily forgotten.

After Tokyo, the Johnson Rule was developed to govern selection of relay members on the Olympic team. The rule, which applies to the men’s team only, allows any person making the U.S. track and field team to be eligible for any relay.

That allowed Johnson to be named to the 1,600-meter relay team, even though he was only entered in the 200 meters here.

The top American quarter-milers called the policy unfair and all but organized a boycott. Their meeting Saturday was to reconcile their differences with Johnson. The men patched things up enough to put together the meet’s most impressive victory.

Andrew Valmon led off and gained an eight-meter lead. Quincy Watts, who already had won the 400 meters, drew gasps from the crowd with his performance. The former USC runner opened a 40-meter lead and handed it to Johnson.

Johnson, who has been ill, added 10 meters to the lead, and Steve Lewis, the 1988 Olympic 400-meter champion, tacked on more. The United States won by a ridiculous margin.

The former world record of 2:56.16 was set by a U.S. team at altitude in the 1968 Olympics and equaled by another U.S. team at Seoul in 1988.

Rosen singled out Watts for his willingness to take his place on the relay team from the preliminary rounds through the final.

“Quincy is a class act,” Rosen said. “No doubt in my mind that the 4x100 (team’s performance) helped the 4x400, because, believe you me, those athletes are watching each other.”

Lewis’ eight golds and one silver place him high in the Olympic medal firmament. Only distance runner Paavo Nurmi of Finland has more golds, nine. Lewis is tied for second with jumper Ray Ewry of the United States.

Another venerable Olympian, Evelyn Ashford, won her fourth gold medal, bringing an end to a remarkable Olympic career that began with the 1976 Games at Montreal.

“I’m very proud to say that this is my last Olympics and I’m leaving here with something,” Ashford said.

Once again Ashford’s experience staved off disaster. Three of her golds have come in relays, and Ashford, 35, is the master at saving bad baton passes. In the 1988 Olympics, Ashford took the baton from Florence Griffith Joyner and bobbled it. Then she streaked up the track to run down Marlies Gohr of East Germany and secure the U.S. gold medal.

In Saturday night’s 400-meter relay final, Ashford ran the leadoff leg and nearly ran up the back of Esther Jones. Jones was running with her left hand back, blindly searching for the baton. Ashford knew how to handle the situation.

She used what she called the “two-handed pass” to get the baton to Jones and keep the relay alive. Ashford grabbed Jones’ hand and jammed the stick into it.

“I just invented it today,” Ashford said of the new technique.

By the time the baton got to Torrence, the Commonwealth of Independent States’ team held a slight lead. But Torrence raced past Irinia Privalova and won in 42.11 seconds. A surprising Nigerian team placed third.

Was Torrence a welcome member of the relay team, and how did the other members handle the Games’ biggest tattletale?

“We were all business on the track,” Jones said. “We may not all have agreed with what Gwen said. But we left (the controversy) where it was and just did what we had to do to win.”

Torrence again was the star of the 1,600-meter relay. She got the baton in second place and handed it to Jerl Miles, having gained a five-meter lead. Miles held off the runner from the CIS and gave Rochelle Stevens the baton even with Olga Bryzgina, who is No. 3 in the women’s 400 meters, all time.

Bryzgina tucked in behind Stevens and then powered past her in the middle of the home straight. The CIS won in 3:20.20. The Americans were second in 3:20.92.

Later, Ashford smiled her way through a news conference, with its questions about her legacy in the sport. She had battled the Eastern Bloc when there was one, and she has extended the definition of a sprinter’s working lifetime.

When it was over, Ashford gathered the three other U.S. 400-meter relay runners around her and ushered them out of the room. Can’t be late for drug testing, Ashford told them.

She had had enough controversy for one Olympics.

Relay Records

A look at world records set by the United States on Saturday.

* 4x100 37.40

(Mike Marsh, Houston; Leroy Burrell, Houston; Dennis Mitchell, Gainesville, Fla.; Carl Lewis, Houston). Old record: 37.50, United States (Andre Cason, Burrell, Mitchell, Lewis), 1991.

* 4x400 2:55.74

(Andrew Valmon, Bloomfield, N.J.; Quincy Watts, Los Angeles; Michael Johnson, Dallas; Steve Lewis, Santa Monica). Old record, 2:56.16, United States, 1968, and tied by United States, 1988.

The Gold Rush

A look at the all-time gold-medal winners in track and field.

PAAVO NURMI (FINLAND): 9

1920--10,000 meters; cross-country*; cross-country relay*

1924--1,500 meters; 5,000 meters; 3,000-meter relay*; cross-country*; cross-country relay*

1928--10,000 meters

RAY EWRY (UNITED STATES): 8

1900--Standing high jump*; standing long jump*; standing triple jump*

1904--Standing high jump*; standing long jump*; standing triple jump*

1908--Standing high jump*; standing long jump*

CARL LEWIS (UNITED STATES): 8

1984--100 meters; 200 meters; long jump; 4x100 relay

1988--100 meters; long jump

1992--Long jump; 4x100 relay

*Discontinued events

**Ewing also won gold medals in the standing high jump and the standing long jump in the Intercalated, or Interim, Games of 1906 at Athens, but they are considered unofficial by the International Olympic Committee.