Atlanta 1996 / A weekly update on the Summer Games, at 26 days and counting : Fencing Medalist Westbrook Finds Sabers Can Be Lifesavers

Peter Westbrook, the only U.S. fencer in the last 36 years to win an Olympic medal with his saber bronze in 1984 in Los Angeles, earned a berth on his sixth Olympic team by advancing to the quarterfinals in the recent national championships in Cincinnati.

But that was not his proudest moment at the nationals. That came when Akhnaten Spencer-El of Harlem won the gold medal in the under-19 saber competition, becoming the first national champion from the Peter Westbrook Foundation. Two of his other students won medals.

In six years, the nonprofit organization in Manhattan started by Westbrook as a vehicle for working with inner-city youth has grown from six to more than 100 students. On the initial board of directors were the late Arthur Ashe and Wilma Rudolph.

“It’s unbelievable what we’ve been able to accomplish,” Westbrook, 44, said. “I can have 100 kids every semester and change their lives. It makes me feel like I’m giving back for what God gave me.”

At 15, Westbrook was running with a bad crowd in Newark, N.J.--”most of my friends from back then are dead, on drugs, in prison,” he said--when his mother offered him $5 to take fencing classes. Mariko Westbrook is a native of Japan whose ancestors were Samurai warriors.

“I loved it, but I’m not stupid,” he said. “I would tell her that I was going to quit and she would give me five more dollars to stick with it. Everybody asks me if fencing will ever become a professional sport. Hey, I started as a professional.”

FACTOID

The organizing committee will serve about a million meals to the 15,000 athletes and coaches housed in the Olympic Village.

NEWSMAKER

When Jenny Keim made the U.S. three-meter diving team with her second-place finish in the trials Thursday in Indianapolis, it gave Coach Ron O’Brien at least one student on every Summer Olympic team since 1968. Two other O’Brien students, Mary Ellen Clark and Scott Donie, also made the team.

They also could be his last. O’Brien, 58, said last week he is strongly considering retiring after this year. He said that he wants to spend more time with his wife of 36 years, Mary Jane.

He has earned the time off, having coached 15 Olympians. One was Greg Louganis, the only man to sweep the springboard and platform gold medals in two consecutive Olympics.

Clark won the 10-meter platform Saturday and Donie won the three-meter springboard Friday.

Clark, who sat out most of 1995 because of vertigo, said that she had complete faith in O’Brien’s management of her comeback.

“It’s like a dance,” she said. “He leads and I follow.”

LAUREL WREATH

The German Olympic Committee has invited Margaret Bergmann Lambert, 82, to attend the Olympics as a guest of honor. Competing under the name Gretel Bergmann, she was not allowed on the German Olympic team in 1936 because she is Jewish. She emigrated to the United States and won national tiles in 1937 in the shotput and in ’38 in the high jump.

THORN WREATH

Seven months after instituting one of the strictest drug policies in international sports, including four-year bans for steroid users, the international swimming federation is considering relaxing its rules. It cited inconsistencies within the rules and difficulties in defending them against appeals.

Olympic Scene Notes

Three years ago, when one of Quincy Watts’ Nike shoes disintegrated during the final of the 400 meters in the World Championships, a Reebok spokesman declined comment. He knew the same thing could happen to his company’s spikes. And it did in the U.S. Olympic trials Monday, when another quarter-miler, Antonio Pettigrew, had one of the insoles curl up inside his shoe. He missed advancing to the finals by one-hundredth of a second. . . . When Atlanta Olympic chief Billy Payne said that as a track fan he is disappointed in attendance at the trials, USA Track & Field officials took exception. “Mr. Payne is such a fan of track and field that, when the indoor championships moved here in 1994, he skipped the meet in order to attend the University of Georgia’s spring football game,” they said in a press release.

Byron Davis changed his mind about retiring from competitive swimming and was named assistant women’s coach at UCLA. He finished fourth at the Olympic trials in the 100 butterfly while trying become the first African American on the U.S. Olympic swimming team. . . . In the fine tradition of boxing, Floyd Mayweather, a 125-pounder, is already taunting his opponents. “I’m going to knock out a Cuban in Atlanta for blowing up our [Brothers to the Rescue] planes,” he said. “I was really upset when that happened. To me, it’s not just disrespecting our president, it’s disrespecting our entire country. They have to be taught a lesson.” Cuba shot down two civilian planes owned by the Cuban exile group in February, claiming they had invaded Cuban air space. . . . The U.S. baseball team’s starting lineup probably will include at least two Southern Californians, Cal State Fullerton’s Mark Kotsay in left field and USC’s Jacque Jones in center. UCLA’s Troy Glaus is competing to start at third base. . . . Mike Herbert of Rogers, Ark., won’t have to go back to wrestling bears yet. He was named to his third Olympic team in the men’s 500-meter single kayak.

Times staff writer Lisa Dillman contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

This Week

* TODAY: Final day of U.S. track and field trials in Atlanta, diving trials in Indianapolis and equestrian dressage and show jumping trials in Gladstone, N.J.; finals of World Beach Invitational volleyball, Hermosa Beach.

* MONDAY: U.S. men’s soccer team vs. El Salvador, Richmond, Va.; U.S. baseball team vs. Japan, Charlotte, N.C.

* TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY: U.S. rhythmic gymnastics trials, Boston.

* WEDNESDAY: U.S. men’s soccer team vs. Mexico, St. Louis; U.S. baseball team vs. Japan, Miami.

* THURSDAY: U.S. baseball team vs. Australia, Melbourne, Fla.

* THURSDAY-SUNDAY: U.S. artistic gymnastics trials, Boston; Santa Clara International Invitational swim meet.

* FRIDAY: Gaz de France Grand Prix track and field meet, Paris; U.S. baseball team vs. Australia, Tampa, Fla.

* SATURDAY: U.S. baseball team vs. Cuba, Raleigh, N.C.

* SATURDAY-SUNDAY: Last of two selection trials for equestrian three-day event, Dalton, Ga.

* SUNDAY: U.S. men’s soccer team vs. Saudi Arabia, Oneonta, N.Y.; U.S. baseball team vs. Cuba, Columbia, S.C.