O’Brien Nearing Decathlon Record : Goodwill Games: Even without being pushed by top competition, American’s first-day score is almost a personal best.

The sun was out in full force. The crowd was not. Feeling too much heat and not enough inspiration, Dan O’Brien figured Thursday that he would settle for a credible performance instead of an incredible one in the Goodwill Games decathlon competition.

“After the first two events, I was thinking, ‘No world record. I’m just going to go steady and win this thing,’ ” he said. “But when I was high jumping, I said, ‘Hey, I can get back in this thing.’ ”

By the time he had finished the high jump, fourth of the five events scheduled on the first day, he had cleared a personal best of 7 feet 2 1/2 inches, tying the American decathlon record, and was only 21 points off his own world-record pace.

When the seven decathletes returned to the track for their final event of the day, the 400 meters, the public address announcer tried his best to stir the crowd. Considering that there were no more than 5,000 spectators in the 28,000-seat Petrovsky Stadium, he could almost have given each of them a private pep talk.

Instead, he used a microphone to inform them that O’Brien ran the 400 in 48.51 seconds when he set his most recent world record in 1992 at Talence, France.

“That means Dan has a wonderful opportunity to improve his points,” the announcer said.

O’Brien was thinking the same thing when he reached his starting blocks. Seven minutes later, he was still standing beside them as officials refused to start the race until they received the go-ahead from their liaison to the television producers.

“The longer I waited, the more nervous I got,” O’Brien said.

But once the race started, O’Brien put it behind him quickly, finishing in a respectable 47.73. That gave him 4,736 points, 16 ahead of his world-record pace and only two points off his best first-day score ever, entering today’s final five events.

Asked about his chances of surpassing the record, O’Brien, who will never win an award for positive thinking, said, “Fifty-fifty.”

The odds would improve in his favor, he added, if he had someone to challenge him other than himself. O’Brien, who leads runner-up Steve Fritz of the United States by 623 points, finished first in all five events Thursday.

“There’s no Eduard Hamalainen nipping at my heels,” O’Brien said, referring to this year’s world leader from Belarus. “It’s kind of an easygoing competition.”

Germany’s Heike Drechsler could relate to this after her close friend and closest rival, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, withdrew from the long jump. Drechsler’s five best jumps were the five best in the competition, including the winner of 23-4 1/2.

“I missed Jackie Joyner,” Drechsler said of Joyner-Kersee, whose coach, Bob Kersee, discouraged her from competing after she won the heptathlon Tuesday. “When there is no one else who can beat me, it isn’t a fight.”

Joyner-Kersee and Drechsler are scheduled to meet several more times this summer in the long jump. Then, Drechsler said, she will test herself in a heptathlon in September at Talence.

U.S. sprinter Michael Johnson did not have the luxury of a lesser field.

Ranked among the top four in the world in the 200 meters for the last four years, Johnson entered that race Thursday with world champion Frankie Fredericks to his left, Olympic champion Michael Marsh to his right and world silver medalist John Regis in another lane. Johnson won in 20.10 seconds, with Fredericks second in 20.17, Regis third in 20.31 and Marsh fourth in 20.48.

O’Brien said he hopes to peak this year at Talence. He probably will need to be in top form because Hamalainen is also scheduled to compete there.

One of O’Brien’s coaches, Rick Sloan, said the decathlete from Moscow, Ida., is physically ready to break the world record today.

“Each one of those is a very easy mark to come back and get,” he said, referring to O’Brien’s record-breaking performance in the final five events two years ago. “When we come to the 1,500 meters, we want to be in a position to run a relative time to what he ran at Talence to get the record,” That would be 4:42.10.

Although that might not sound like an insurmountable challenge for a world-class decathlete, O’Brien more often than not has too little to give by the time he reaches the 1,500, the 10th event.

Earlier this summer in the national championships at Knoxville, Tenn., needing a 4:42 to break his record, he jogged to a time that was a half-minute slower.

His coaches claim that the 1,500 is a mental barrier for him.

Positive thinking, he counters, does not make the race shorter.

“If it’s a hot day like today, I’m going to be tired when I get to the 1,500,” he said Thursday. “I’ve come to the conclusion this season that I’m not a distance runner.”

So less than half an hour after leaving the track, he already had talked himself out of a potential world record. His coaches had about 18 hours to talk him back into it.