WORLD SPORTS SCENE : Jackie Joyner-Kersee’s Heptathlon Streak Is Threatened by Drechsler

With the German track and field federation’s decision last week to grant Heike Drechsler’s wish to compete in the heptathlon in next month’s World Championships in Sweden, Jackie Joyner-Kersee’s 10-year winning streak in the event is in jeopardy.

Drechsler, 30, set the world junior record in the heptathlon in 1981, then, while concentrating on the long jump and sprints, did not enter another until last year. Her results were impressive, a 1994 world best of 6,741 points.

Joyner-Kersee, 33, holds the world record of 7,291. But she has scored fewer than 6,800 in three of her last four heptathlons, including 6,375 in last month’s national championships. That was the fewest points she has scored since the 1984 Summer Olympics, which was the last time she finished second.

Drechsler, like Joyner-Kersee, also will long jump in Sweden after qualifying in her national championships. But Drechsler did not compete in the heptathlon there, seeking, and eventually receiving, a waiver into the worlds.

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Algerian runner Noureddine Morceli continues to astonish, taking almost 1.5 seconds off his 1,500-meter world record last week at Nice, France with a time of 3 minutes 27.37 seconds. ‘

Wait until Morceli, 25, makes good on his promise to hold every world record between 800 and 5,000 meters. Sebastian Coe’s record of 1:41.73 in the 800 is considered too fast for Morceli, but he said he will prove the skeptics wrong when he specializes in the event in 1997. Besides the 1,500, he has records in the mile, 2,000 and 3,000.

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In an unusual demonstration to celebrate the opening of a new exhibition at the Olympic museum at Lausanne, Switzerland, two Americans, long jumper Kareem Streete-Thompson and high jumper Dwight Stones, attempted to beat the world records in the standing high jump and standing long jump set by the United States’ Ray Ewry at the Summer Olympics of 1900 at Paris and 1904 at St. Louis.

Both failed. In the long jump, Streete-Thompson went 11 feet 3 to Ewry’s 11-4 7/8. In the high jump, Stones went 4-9 to Ewry’s 5-5.

Ewry, who overcame childhood polio, won eight gold medals between 1904 and ‘08, all in events that have been discontinued. He also has the world record in the backward standing long jump of 9-3.

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Mike Powell might compete in the long jump in the U.S. Olympic Festival, which begins Friday in three Colorado cities. He believes he can break his world record of 29-4 1/2 in the high altitude of the Air Force Academy’s track at Colorado Springs, where Calvin Smith and Evelyn Ashford set 100-meter world records on the same afternoon in 1983. Carl Lewis will be there to push him. . . . British track continues to reel. Colin Jackson, unbeaten last year in the 110-meter high hurdles, is slumping and might not compete in the World Championships. Jackson won the event at a European Athletic Assn. meet in Padua, Italy, Sunday, but in an unimpressive 13.32 seconds. Sally Gunnell, Olympic and world champion in the 400-meter hurdles, also might bypass Sweden because of an Achilles tendon injury.

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Besides jumps and spins, young figure skaters should learn the ethics of competition, says Tiffany Chin, a 1984 U.S. Olympian and former national champion from Toluca Lake. So she will include that as part of the curriculum in the Aug. 21-24 camp that she is conducting at North Hills’ Icoplex.

“After Tonya and Nancy, kids wanted to know if they had to be that cutthroat to be successful,” she says. “I want to show them the sport is not that scary. You can have fun and be a competitor too.”

Among the camp’s coaches are Irina Rodnina, a three-time Olympic and 10-time world champion in pairs from Russia, and Peter Carruthers, a 1984 Olympic silver medalist in pairs from the United States. The deadline for enrolling is Thursday.

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Once considered the U.S. figure skating pair of the future, Stephanie Stiegler and Lance Travis, who trained at Lake Arrowhead, have split since their third-place finish in last winter’s U.S. championships. Each has a new partner.

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The U.S. pairs team of the present, world bronze medalists Jenni Meno and Todd Sand, is getting married Saturday.

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The Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles produced a CD-ROM, “An Olympic Journey, The Story of Women in the Olympic Games,” that its president, Anita DeFrantz, has presented to the IOC. It now will be distributed to L.A. area high schools.