Better Late Than Never for O’Brien

Dan finally did it.

Dan O’Brien, whose rivalry with Dave Johnson was one of the summer’s biggest failings, rebounded Saturday by breaking the world record in the decathlon.

The reigning world champion had four personal-best performances on his way to scoring 8,891 points, bettering Daley Thompson’s mark set at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles by 44 points. O’Brien became the first American to hold the record since Bruce Jenner in 1976.

“Before I used to say the world’s greatest athlete was Daley Thompson,” O’Brien said of the 1980 and ’84 Olympic champion. “Now I have to say myself at this point. Finally.

“If you are asking who is the world’s greatest athlete, you are looking at the world’s greatest decathlete. That’s what I wanted to prove at this meet.

“The world’s greatest athlete has come back to America.”

O’Brien and Johnson were expected to battle for the gold medal at Barcelona last month to decide who was the world’s greatest. The rivalry was fueled by an advertising campaign for an athletic shoe that spent millions on its Dan vs. Dave television spots.

But O’Brien failed to make the U.S. team after no-heighting in the pole vault at the U.S. Olympic trials at New Orleans in June. He also failed to finish a decathlon at Stockholm in July.

Johnson won the trials to become the gold medal favorite, but suffered a stress fracture in his right foot before the Barcelona competition, and struggled to earn a bronze medal.

O’Brien, 26, of Moscow, Ida., had another scare in the pole vault Saturday when he missed his first attempt at 15-feet-1.

O’Brien, who missed three attempts at 15-9 in New Orleans, easily cleared on his second try and wiped his brow. He also stopped to kneel on the runway with a wide smile after getting his pole back.

“(New Orleans) was on my mind entirely,” O’Brien said. “But I knew I could make the opening height. And once I made the opening height, I knew I had a shot at the record.”

He cleared 16-4 3/4, before missing at 16-8 3/4.

O’Brien easily defeated Robert Zmelik of Czechoslovakia, the Olympic gold medalist, in the two-day, 10-event meet. Zmelik finished second with 8,344 points, far off his Olympic total of 8,611. Alain Blondel of France was third with 8,285 points.

Saturday, O’Brien broke his personal best in the discus, then bettered it on all three throws in the javelin, the next-to-last event. That put him in position to break Thompson’s record. O’Brien, needing to run 4 minutes 45 seconds in the 1,500 meters, finished in 4:42.10.

“I knew I could run under what I needed to set the world record,” O’Brien said. “My coaches wanted a personal best, but I don’t think I was in shape enough to do another personal best.”

His score at the end of nine events, 8,224, would have been good enough for fourth place at Barcelona.

“It would have been good enough even for me to make the Olympic team,” O’Brien said. “I thought about it and wished I could have done that without the pole vault.”

O’Brien started on record pace by posting the best legal first-day decathlon score.

He entered Saturday 43 points ahead of the pace set by Thompson when Thompson had 4,677 points en route to his world record eight years ago.