Johnson Dances Away Record : Track and field: Sprinter regrets “ballet” finish in winning 400; Marsh and Torrance capture 100 meters and Lewis fails to qualify.

Advice for young sprinters: Cross the finish line with confidence and determination, as Mike Marsh, Maurice Greene and Dennis Mitchell did at the USA Mobil Outdoor Track and Field Championships Friday, when they had to be separated by thousandths of a second to determine the winner. Do not cross it like Gwen Torrence, who never saw it, or Michael Johnson, who ignored it.

Unlike the significantly improved weather conditions, not all the performances at Hughes Stadium on the third day of the championships were picture perfect. But it is unlikely that anyone among the crowd of 11,321 left without feeling entertained.

For those track and field aficionados reading about the event from afar, the result that no doubt will stand out was Johnson’s time in winning his 41st consecutive 400-meter final in 43.66 seconds, the fourth-fastest ever and the fastest ever in the United States.

Those who saw it, however, will forever wonder how fast he might have run if he had not begun celebrating 15 meters from the finish, spreading out his arms as if posing for photographers. Perhaps the public relations agency the nation’s No. 1 track and field athlete hired to attract the attention he certainly deserves made him do it.

“I would have taken back the ballet finish if I thought I was on a world-record pace,” he said, referring to the 43.29 run seven years ago by Butch Reynolds, the runner-up Friday in 44.42. “I didn’t think I was.”

But if that Baryshnikov moment--or was it Rodman?--left purists unfulfilled, the men’s 100 meters did not. It was not particularly fast, but it was about as close as possible as Marsh surged to win in 10.23, the same time recorded for Greene and Mitchell.

Not until officials viewed the photo from the finish line was Marsh declared the winner in 10.222 to Greene’s 10.224 and Mitchell’s 10.230. Jon Drummond was fourth in 10.26.

As significant as who finished among the medalists to earn berths in the 100 meters at the World Championships in August in Sweden was who did not.

The world’s two fastest men, world record-holder Leroy Burrell and two-time Olympic champion Carl Lewis, will join Drummond there as relay alternates, although Lewis also has a chance to make the U.S. team in the long jump after qualifying later in the day for Sunday’s final. Burrell finished fifth in 10.31, Lewis sixth in 10.32.

Lewis, who failed to qualify for a world championship 100 for the first time in five tries since 1983, set his jaw in defiance of those who might think he is finished two weeks shy of his 34th birthday.

“There’s no way Carl Lewis ran the 100 meters today,” he said. “If you want to judge me by this performance, you’re crazy.”

Marsh, however, would be quite satisfied if he were judged on Friday’s victory. Known as a 200-meter runner since he won the Olympic gold medal and came within one-hundredth of a second of the world record in that event in 1992 at Barcelona, the former UCLA sprinter has longed to be equally recognized for the more glamorous 100.

Having taken a major step toward that goal, he now returns his attention to the 200. He has a date on Sunday with Johnson, who is trying to become the first man to double in that event and the 400 in the U.S. championships since 1899.

Torrence, who, like Marsh, has been considered a 200-meter runner since winning at Barcelona, also kept alive her chance for a double by winning the 100 Friday in 11.04. But she did not know she had crossed the finish line first until much later because she closed her eyes and gritted her teeth 20 meters from it in a futile effort to ward off the pain from a strained muscle behind her right knee. She almost fell at the finish.

“I just closed my eyes and prayed I would finish in the top three,” she said.

UCLA’s John Godina, attempting to become the first man in the U.S. championships since USC’s Parry O’Brien in 1955 to double in the discus and shotput, fell short on the front end, finishing second to Mike Buncic Friday in the discus.

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Track Notes

Kevin Young, the world-record holder and 1992 Olympic champion, and Danny Harris, 1984 Olympic and ’87 world championship silver medalist, failed to qualify for the final in the 400-meter hurdles. . . . In men’s long jump qualifying, world record holder Mike Powell had the longest jump at 26-8 1/4. Carl Lewis was second at 26-3. . . . Dan O’Brien’s point total in the decathlon, which ended in the rain at 11:32 p.m. Thursday, was 8,682, far short of his meet record set in 1991.