WORLD SPORTS SCENE / RANDY HARVEY : Top Secret: Next U.S. Representative on IOC

LeRoy Walker’s best-kept secret, perhaps the only secret the amiable and usually forthcoming U.S. Olympic Committee president has chosen to conceal from the media, has been revealed.

On behalf of the USOC, the four men he recommended to fill the 2 1/2-year-old vacancy on the International Olympic Committee reserved for a second U.S. member are former United Nations ambassador Andrew Young, outgoing USOC executive director Harvey Schiller, USOC vice president Michael Lenard and international swimming federation vice president Ross Wales.

Less than 24 hours after Walker confirmed that those were the names he presented to IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch during a meeting in Los Angeles on the day of the World Cup soccer final, the list was expanded to include three international sports federation presidents: Jim Easton of archery, George Killion of basketball and Don Porter of softball.

Anita DeFrantz, president of Los Angeles’ Amateur Athletic Foundation, said last week that she and Samaranch have agreed upon the person who will join her as the IOC’s other representative to the United States and that the name will be formally announced on Sept. 5 at the conclusion of an IOC session in Paris.

Unfortunately for inquiring minds, neither she nor Samaranch--the only ones certain to know the name--are willing to reveal it. But DeFrantz did say the nominee was not necessarily among the USOC recommendations.

So why was Samaranch so insistent that the USOC be active in the process?

Those familiar with his thinking say he is sincere when he regularly pronounces the USOC the world’s most important national Olympic committee and he did not want to ignore its interests. For example, when the USOC reacted negatively after he floated the name of his favorite candidate, Peter Ueberroth, Samaranch looked elsewhere.

At the same time, however, he was repelled by the USOC’s inability to arrive upon a consensus choice after Robert Helmick resigned from the IOC in 1991.

In the end, Samaranch trusted DeFrantz more than others among the USOC leadership. That does not mean that she was allowed to make the choice, but the new member will have her approval.

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The USOC’s male athlete of the year might have emerged last week in cycling’s World Championships at Palermo, Italy. After becoming the first U.S. man to win a world championship in the match sprint since 1912 on Wednesday, Marty Nothstein became the first American to win two world titles in the same year by adding a gold medal Saturday in the keiren.

Intrigued while watching the cycling competition on television from his home in Pennsylvania during the 1984 Summer Olympics, Nothstein, 23, felt it was more of a calling than a coincidence when a small velodrome was constructed three years later next to his grandmother’s Lehigh County home.

With three other medals on the track, the United States had already achieved its most successful world championships before the road competitions began Sunday.

The other theme from the first week at Palermo related to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Despite their second place in the medal standings behind France, the Germans competing as one team were far less formidable than were the East Germans when they competed alone.

“With the reunification of the two Germanys, all the structures of the former East Germany were abandoned for purely economic reasons,” German sprinter Michael Huebner said.

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The International Amateur Athletic Federation, which governs track and field, will investigate the fight between sprinters Dennis Mitchell of the United States and Olapade Adeniken of Nigeria that occurred in the lobby of a Zurich, Switzerland, hotel early Thursday. But the IAAF’s director of competitions, Sandro Giovanelli, said the federation probably will not act because the fight appears to have been instigated by a personal matter.

Mitchell and Adeniken had to be separated the previous weekend at the Raleigh-Durham, N.C., airport after the Nigerian allegedly harassed Mitchell’s mother and girlfriend at the check-in counter. Adeniken denies that, but an unconvinced Mitchell, in the company of his brother and masseur, reportedly confronted him again in Zurich.

Although Adeniken, a martial arts expert, more than held his own against the three men, he returned to his home in Austin, Tex., later that day with two stitches over his eye and a mild concussion. Mitchell’s face was bloodied, but he was unbowed, finishing second in the 100 meters less than 48 hours later in Brussels, Belgium, and winning Sunday in Cologne, Germany.

Mitchell said he had been advised by the IAAF, the governing body of track and field, and his association not to discuss the fight, but added that he would release a statement in the future.

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The IOC hopes for a more peaceful resolution to the differences between its two Australian members, Kevan Gosper of Melbourne and Phil Coles of Sydney. Coles reportedly worked behind the scenes against Melbourne in its bid for the 1996 Summer Olympics so that Sydney would be a viable candidate for 2000.

Coles says he has been falsely accused. But he remains suspect in Melbourne, which lost its campaign to Atlanta. Sydney won for 2000.