Devers Gets Plenty of Company on Fast Track

Reputation means so little in the intensely competitive world of 100-meter sprinters in the United States that it would have been no surprise Friday if either the men’s world-record holder or the women’s defending Olympic champion had failed to survive the first two rounds on the opening day of the Olympic track and field trials.

There should be some qualification here. Both Leroy Burrell, who set the world record at 9.85 seconds in 1994, and Gail Devers, the Olympic champion in 1992 and world champion in ‘93, have done little to enhance their reputations in the last two years while struggling against various leg injuries.

Still, in most countries their places on the Olympic team would be virtually guaranteed. That was hardly the case at the new Centennial Olympic Stadium, where the only thing guaranteed is that they would have to run very fast to even have a chance of advancing to today’s semifinals and final.

Both did. Devers, who looked like she would have plenty of time to concentrate on her other event--the 100-meter hurdles--when she finished sixth in 11.20 on this same track three weeks ago--ran the second-fastest time in the world this year, 10.96, in the first round, then returned three hours later with a second-round 10.99.

Burrell had more difficulty getting started, barely advancing past the first round with a sluggish fifth-place finish in 10.16 but then came back in the second round with a second-place 10.01. That is his fastest time since he set the world record two years ago in Lausanne, Switzerland.

But all Devers and Burrell earned with their impressive times was the right to come back and do it all over again today. They must finish among the top three in their finals to earn a place on the U.S. team for Atlanta’s July 19-Aug. 4 Summer Olympics. That is no cinch, especially for Burrell.

Besides Burrell, nine other sprinters ran under 10.08 in at least one round. That includes two-time Olympic champion Carl Lewis (10.10, 10.04), defending national champion Mike Marsh (10.17, 10.07) and 1992 Olympic bronze medalist Dennis Mitchell (10.07, 10.08). Based on Friday’s rounds, however, the best of the group might be Jon Drummond (9.99, 10.0) and Jeff Williams (10.02, 10.07).

“I think it’s going to be super fast tomorrow,” said Marsh, the former Hawthorne High and UCLA sprinter. “Everyone is running right in the same range. It’s almost like a coin toss.”

Williams, another L.A. product (Washington High), did not exactly agree.

“I think Jeff Williams will win it tomorrow,” he said. “Period.”

But he did agree that the other, more famous, runners such as Lewis, Burrell, Mitchell and Marsh would engage in a heck of a race for second place.

“In the big ones, those guys swing a mighty hammer,” he said. “Duck.”

That is usually the reaction that the women sprinters have to the 1995 world champion in the 100 meters, Gwen Torrence, as much for what she says off the track as for what she does on it.

Torrence, however, has vowed to make nice in front of her hometown fans and did so Friday, even though only 12,319 of them found their way to the 83,500-seat stadium.

“The best thing for me is to focus on my running and not say negative things that I can read in the paper the next day,” Torrence said.

Her running was not the stuff of headlines either--11.13 in the first round and 10.99 in the second. She left those to Devers and Louisiana State’s NCAA champion, D’Andre Hill, who matched 10.96s in the first round and 10.99s in the second.

Devers, a former UCLA Bruin who lives in Mission Hills, said that she will be satisfied today even if she finishes third.

“My goal is to make the team,” she said. “That’s all that’s important to me.”

Just to get Devers to the starting line after severe hamstring problems the last two years took five doctors. They are easy to count because they are all here.

“Where I go, they have to go,” she said.

Some were required to attend to Devers’ Westwood training partner, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who, as expected, built a formidable lead after the first four events of the heptathlon but had little fun doing it. Suffering from a cold that has forced her to take antibiotics since Tuesday, she complicated matters by twisting her ankle slightly in the high jump. Then she suffered a hamstring cramp in the 200. She said that she will return for the final three events today but did not appear to be looking forward to it.

With no finals on the first day, the qualifying in other events was uneventful. That is the way favorites such as world champion John Godina in the shotput and American-record holders Lawrence Johnson in the pole vault and Johnny Gray in the 800 meters no doubt liked it.

A veteran of many of these wars and almost as many operations on her legs, Mary Slaney, 37, advanced past the first round of the 5,000 meters. On the other end of the spectrum, a fresher face, Bell Gardens High senior Michael Granville, finished third in his first-round heat of the 800 in 1:48.20 and moved into today’s quarterfinals.