TRACK AND FIELD / JOHN ORTEGA : Mayhew, Better With Age, Points Toward Olympics

The question to the javelin thrower is to the point: “When are you going to retire?”

The answer is less finite: “I plan on competing through the 1996 Olympics, maybe longer,” says Glendale’s Donna Mayhew.

Mayhew, a 1978 graduate of Crescenta Valley High, won her event in last month’s USA Track & Field championships only a day before her 33rd birthday, but figures she is capable of improving through at least the 1996 season.

“I don’t like to be presumptuous, but I’d like to get the (U.S.) record before I retire,” Mayhew said. “I think that is within my reach. I think I’m definitely capable (of throwing in the 217- to 219-foot range), and with a little more refinement of my technique, the record is possible.”

Although Mayhew’s personal best of 208 feet 10 inches puts her third on the all-time U.S. list, it pales in comparison to the national record of 227-5 set by Kate Schmidt in 1977. Nonetheless, she is undaunted by the challenge.

Mayhew, who throws for Nike Coast Athletics, is undefeated this season. She has thrown better than 200 feet in four of six meets, and is working under a new coach, Charlie DiMarco of Northridge-based Advantage Athletics.

“We’re looking for some big marks out of her,” DiMarco said. “I’d like to get her in shape to throw (in the 213- to 216-foot range) at the World Championships. If she can do that, she could contend for a medal.”

The World Championships will be held Aug. 13-22 in Stuttgart, Germany, but Mayhew’s ultimate goal is the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Mayhew finished seventh in 1988 at Seoul and 12th in 1992 at Barcelona.

“I want to go through ’96 definitely,” she said. “Those Games will be in the States, and I’d really like to throw well there.”

Although Mayhew is unsure how much longer she will compete after that, she is certain that she will not throw unless she is among the nation’s elite.

“I want to go out on top or near the top,” she said. “I don’t want to hang on too long and be a has-been.”

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Grounded javelins: Mayhew and several other javelin throwers will be forced to compete without their favorite implements in the World Championships because the International Amateur Athletic Federation has yet to allow javelins designed by Dick Held for use in major championships.

The IAAF has not given Held’s javelins clearance for use in the World Championships because it claims that the implements are not yet available to competitors worldwide.

This means that throwers such as Jan Zelezny of the Czech Republic, Tom Pukstys of the United States and Mayhew will not be able to use the Held design in Stuttgart.

Zelezny, the 1992 Olympic champion, improved the men’s world record to 313-5 with a Held javelin last month, and Pukstys set a U.S mark of 281-2 with the same brand.

Mayhew’s season best of 206-7 at the USATF meet also came with a Held model.

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Tracking Auer: Stacey Auer, who played an instrumental role in Thousand Oaks High’s 1992 Southern Section 3-A Division girls’ track and field title, is trying to look toward the future--not dwell on the past--as she approaches her freshman season at Auburn.

After missing the second half of her senior cross-country season with a stress fracture in her left foot, Auer began the 1993 track season with a “50-50 chance” of competing in the Marmonte League finals in early May.

By late March, Auer had written off track. Then, in April, she suffered a second stress fracture--this one in her left shin--and missed two more months of running. Now there is a possibility she will redshirt during the fall cross-country campaign.

“I expect to be relatively fit by the middle of September,” Auer said. “But I don’t think I’ll be in the greatest shape of my life. . . . I’m just going to have to wait and see how I feel before deciding what to do.”

Auer, who has personal bests of 10 minutes 38.63 seconds in the 3,200 meters and 5:00.70 in the 1,600, has maintained a strict regimen of resistance exercises in the pool, riding a bike and lifting weights, but she realizes that nothing can substitute for running itself.

“I found that even when I was working really hard in the pool, it was not the same thing as running,” Auer said.

“It just doesn’t get you in the same kind of shape.”

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Top guns: Marion Jones, who won three state titles for Thousand Oaks High in last month’s state championships, heads a list of seven athletes from the region who have made the National Federation’s 1993 honor roll.

To qualify, athletes must meet or exceed certain standards in their respective events based on performances in the state championships.

Jones made the girls’ list in the 100 (season best of 11.30 seconds), 200 (23.00) and long jump (22 feet 1/2 inch), and Cheaza Figueroa of Quartz Hill and Vanitta Kinard of El Camino Real qualified in the triple jump.

Figueroa bounded a region record of 40-1 1/4 to defeat Kinard (39-9 1/2) for the state title.

State champions Drue Powell of Reseda (personal best of 13.87 in the 110 high hurdles) and Jeff Nadeau of Monroe (7-2 1/4 in the high jump) made the boys’ list, as did runners-up Andre DeSaussure of Taft (47.11 in the 400) and Jeremy Fischer of Camarillo (7-2 in the high jump).

DeSaussure and Fischer will be seniors in the fall.

Jones (who is bound for North Carolina), Figueroa (unsigned), Kinard (Santa Monica College), Powell (unsigned) and Nadeau (Arizona) were June graduates.