WORLD SPORTS SCENE : Earning Gold Is Not on Agenda of Atlanta ’96

Perhaps compelled by their Southern pride to compete with the success of the most recent Summer Olympics in the United States, organizers of next summer’s Atlanta Games once speculated about a profit even larger than the one generated 11 years ago by the Los Angeles Games.

But now that it appears Atlanta’s surplus, projected initially at $157 million, will be closer to zero, the organizing committee’s president, Billy Payne, is distancing himself from the “P” word.

“We don’t like to think in terms of profit,” he said last week after the organizing committee approved a $1.61-billion budget that includes a contingency fund of only $30 million. “Our objective is to spend all the money we have at our disposal.”

Atlanta’s financial difficulties are not necessarily of the organizers’ making. Because of the economy, they have not found sponsors as eager to contribute as they have for the Summer Games since 1984.

Organizers are now estimating ticket revenues of $422 million, up from the $261.2 million projected, but corporate sponsors are expected to contribute only $428.1 million, down from the $513.4 million projected.

Despite overruns in construction, organizers said there is no risk that the Games will lose money--even with the hefty raises they awarded last week to their executives. Payne will earn $669,112 in the next year. At the same time, they decided to hire 5% fewer staff members than planned.

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While still a high school student three years ago in Thousand Oaks, Marion Jones, the nation’s two-time female high prep track and field athlete of the year, was suspended by USA Track & Field for failing to show for a random drug test. She appealed, arguing that neither she nor her coach received notification of the test, and won.

Her attorney: Johnnie L. Cochran Jr.

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Quote of the Week: Track and field sprinter Michael Johnson, on the necessity of qualifying for the 1996 Summer Olympics: “I’ve got to make the team. I didn’t order tickets.”

World Scene Notes

The IAAF made it official last week. San Jose and New York no longer will stage the two outdoor Grand Prix meets in the United States. They have been replaced by Eugene, Ore., and Atlanta. . . . Connie Price-Smith exchanged her shotput bronze medal for a silver from last winter’s indoor World Championships after the IAAF disqualified gold-medalist Larisa Peleshenko of Russia because of a positive drug test. . . . In the revival of an ancient feud, Rome and Milan are vying for the 2004 Summer Olympics. Adhering to the International Olympic Committee’s stipulation that a country can present only one candidate, the Italian Senate has anointed Rome. But Milan, still miffed because it was passed over in 1870 as the Italian capital in favor of Rome, has refused to accept the decision and will appeal directly to the IOC.

Asian qualifying for the 1996 Summer Olympic baseball tournament ended without perennial Little League World Series contender and 1992 silver medalist Taiwan--known in international competition as Chinese Taipei--advancing. The two berths went to Japan and South Korea.

Guess who’s back for Brazil’s Olympic basketball team? Sharpshooting center Oscar Schmidt, 37, who was not selected for the national team in last year’s world championships because he supposedly was too old. . . . Mark Henry, the 400-pound weightlifter from Austin, Tex., is being sponsored by the World Wrestling Federation, which believes he will join its circuit after he finishes Olympic competition.

Times staff writer Maryann Hudson contributed to this story.