WORLD TRACK NOTES : His Son’s Question Gets a Positive Answer

When Olympic triple jump champion Mike Conley of Fayetteville, Ark., called home three days ago, his 5-year-old son asked, “Daddy, did you win?”

Conley was thinking about his next call home before his third attempt in the triple jump final Monday night in track and field’s World Championships at Gottlieb Daimler Stadium.

“I told him the other day that I hadn’t competed yet, but I knew he was going to ask me the question again,” Conley said. “He knows only one thing about this sport, winning or losing.”

After his first two jumps left him in fourth place, he took a lead that he would not relinquish on the third one, eventually winning at 58 feet 7 1/4 inches.

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For the first time since the 1984 Olympics, when she won the silver medal, Jackie Joyner-Kersee did not win any of the four events on the opening day of the heptathlon.

Yet she has the lead entering the final three events today, by eight points over Bulgaria’s Svetlana Buraga and 14 points over defending champion Sabine Braun of Germany.

Joyner-Kersee’s coach, Bob Kersee, said she is ill, but would not elaborate.

“Unfortunately, she’s going to try to make my prophecy come true that even on her worst day she is better than everyone else on their best day,” he said.

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After Morocco’s Khalid Skah won the Olympic 10,000 meters last year, Kenyan runners protested that one of his teammates used illegal blocking tactics to prevent them from overtaking the leader.

Officials agreed with them initially, awarding first place to Kenyan Richard Chelimo, then decided the next day in favor of Skah.

Monday night, in the 5,000 meters, the Kenyans took revenge, devising a strategy designed to wear down Skah. It worked; he finished fifth. The winner was Kenyan Ismael Kirui, who is Chelimo’s brother.

“Our only plan was that Skah was not going to win,” Kirui said.

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Female middle-distance runners predicted a breakthrough here for the Chinese. So far, they are right. Chinese women finished 1-2-3 in the 3,000 meters.

The winner, Yunxia Qu, said she will give the Mercedes-Benz awarded to her to her father.

“I don’t have a driver’s license,” she said.

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Algeria’s Noureddine Morceli, the defending 1,500-meter champion, ended his one-man boycott of the championships, announcing that he will compete. He said earlier that he would not be here unless he was offered money to compete.