WORLD SPORTS SCENE / RANDY HARVEY : Grand Gesture to Show Not All Are Bitter

More than two years after the International Olympic Committee’s controversial decision to award the 1996 Summer Games to Atlanta instead of sentimental favorite Athens, Greece, the Greeks are not extending an olive branch to the U.S. city. They’re extending an entire olive tree.

Olympia, Greece’s vice-mayor, Apostolol Apostolopousolos, will present the tree in a ceremony at Atlanta’s Botanical Garden on Wednesday, a significant date in Olympic history because it is the 100-year anniversary of French baron Pierre de Coubertin’s first effort to revive the movement. His idea became reality two years later with the birth of the IOC.

As the organizers of the Ancient Olympics and the first Games of the Modern Olympics in Athens in 1896, the Greeks claim a proprietary interest in the movement and, traditionally, have attempted to form a bond with subsequent hosts.

But there was concern that the Greeks might ignore Atlanta because of bitterness over Athens’ narrow loss in a 1990 IOC vote, although John MacAloon, an Olympic historian from the University of Chicago who will deliver the keynote address Wednesday, said that the movement’s true followers in Greece never wavered.

That, of course, does not include everyone in Greece.

After the defeat, one member of Athens’ bid committee, reacting with more humor than most of his colleagues to unsubstantiated rumors that Coca-Cola campaigned on behalf of Atlanta, said: “Today, we no drink Coca-Cola; we drink Pepsi. Tomorrow, who knows?”

During the Summer Olympics at Barcelona, the man was asked if he’d taken any taste tests lately.

“We’re still not drinking Coca-Cola,” he said.

While the defending champion, Germany, and the host, the United States, are automatic qualifiers for soccer’s 1994 World Cup, the first team to earn a berth in the 24-team tournament on the field might be Belgium. Through the first half of the qualifying tournament in Europe’s Group Four, including last Wednesday’s 2-0 victory over Wales, Belgium is 5-0.

Mar del Plata, Argentina, which is supposed to be organizing the 1995 Pan American Games, tried to assure the Pan American Sports Organization (PASO) in a recent meeting at Acapulco that work is progressing.

But doubts linger. The organizing committee listed its address as a hotel in Mar del Plata, but U.S. Olympic committee officials report that telephone operators at the hotel last week said no such organization was registered there.

Olympic champion Kristi Yamaguchi, who will make her professional debut in the Dec. 17 Challenge of Champions at the Forum, has not decided whether she will apply for reinstatement as an amateur so she can defend her title in the 1994 Winter Games at Lillehammer, Norway.

“As long as I’m enjoying my career as a professional skater, who knows?” she said. “I might decide to stay a professional. But if my skating’s going well and I miss the (amateur) competition, I might go back.”

The promoter, Dick Button, would not disclose the length of Yamaguchi’s contract but said he would let her out of it next year if she wants to return to amateur competition.

Lillehammer could use Yamaguchi as a drawing card. After recently sending ticket forms to all 1.8 million Norwegian households, the organizing committee received applications for 1.4 million tickets, an average of 11 per household. The greatest demand was for cross-country skiing and speedskating.

Figure skating was far down the list. Of 112 events, the men’s freestyle program ranked in the bottom five.

For a change, U.S. male figure skaters appear more formidable than the women this season.

Two-time national champion Todd Eldredge won at Skate America and the Nation’s Cup in Germany, Scott Davis was second at Skate America and Skate Canada, and Mark Mitchell won Saturday in the Trophee Lalique at Paris.

The best finish for the women has been Olympic bronze-medalist Nancy Kerrigan’s second at Skate America. Another U.S. Olympian, Tonya Harding Gillooly, was fourth at Skate Canada.

Among highly-touted prospects, Nicole Bobek and Lisa Ervin finished sixth and eighth, respectively, at Skate America, and Tisha Walker of Thousand Oaks was eighth at Paris.

A promising new pairs team, Jenni Meno and Todd Sand of Costa Mesa, won the Prague Skate. Sand’s former partner, Natasha Kuchiki of Canoga Park, recently finished second in Southwest regional qualifying as a singles skater and advanced to the Pacific Coast sectionals.

Convinced that most of its world records were drug-aided, the International Weightlifting Federation has decided to wipe the slate clean in every weight classification and start over in January. Chances for legitimate records are better, IWF President Tamas Ajan said, now that the federation has instituted stringent testing procedures and penalties.

Two U.S. track and field athletes, hammer thrower Jud Logan of North Canton, Ohio and shotputter Bonnie Dasse of Costa Mesa, could not have been encouraged by last week’s developments.

They are hoping to have their four-year suspensions for using an asthma medication, clenbuterol, lifted, as two British weightlifters did after a prominent English doctor testified that the drug should not be classified as a steroid.

But the International Amateur Athletic Federation, which governs track and field, reiterated its earlier position after a meeting of its medical commission that clenbuterol acts both as a steroid and a stimulant. Germany’s track and field federation used that ruling in a hearing last Friday to uphold the four-year suspensions against sprint champion Katrin Krabbe and two other women.