Record Set in a Day Full of Repeats

A world record. A disqualification. A protest. A near fight. A rare repeat. Another protest.

According to the official timing, the Olympic men’s and women’s 100-meter finals combined Saturday night took only 21 1/2 seconds. But one of them wasn’t over even after it was over, and the other was over even before it started for its most accomplished participant.

The men’s winner, Canada’s Donovan Bailey, made history in Centennial Olympic Stadium by becoming the fastest man ever to run the 100 with his time of 9.84 seconds. Then he had to answer for another history.

The last Jamaican-born Canadian to cross the finish line first in the Olympic 100 was Ben Johnson in 1988. Days later, he forfeited his gold medal after testing positive for a banned anabolic steroid. A popular joke was that headlines in Canadian newspapers after the triumph read, “Canadian Wins 100.” After the fall, the headlines read, “Jamaican Tests Positive.”

Bailey, who called Johnson in Toronto last Monday to ask about handling Olympic pressure, is resigned to the comparisons.

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“I’m not trying to do what Ben did or undo what Ben did in Seoul,” he said. “My name is Donovan Bailey. But it’s such a big thing in history, it’s always going to come up because I’m Canadian and Jamaican-born.”

The women’s winner, Gail Devers of Mission Hills in the San Fernando Valley, settled for equaling history, becoming the second woman to win the 100 in consecutive Olympics. The first was the United States’ Wyomia Tyus, who won in 1964 and ’68.

Devers, a former All-American at UCLA, was the subject of a recent made-for-television movie about her comeback in 1992 from Graves’ disease.

Her condition was initially misdiagnosed, and she said her feet were almost amputated because of radiation treatments. The producers could now do a sequel with a romantic ending. As she took her victory lap, her fiance, Kenny Harrison, was on the runway in the triple-jump final. He ultimately won with an Olympic and American record jump of 59 feet, 4 1/4 inches to give the United States its second gold medal of the night.

Devers’ time Saturday was 10.94, the same as awarded to Jamaica’s Merlene Ottey. Judges reviewed the official photo of the finish line and ruled that Devers’ torso crossed first. Ottey protested, just as she had in the 1993 World Championships when she was edged by Devers.

“Been there, done that,” Devers’ coach, Bob Kersee, said, shrugging off Ottey’s latest protest.

It was disallowed by the jury of appeals, which asked technicians to break down the times into thousandths of a second. International track and field officials told The Times that Devers was recorded in 10.932, Ottey in 10.937. The United States’ Gwen Torrence finished third in 10.96.

In quite a contrast to the 1992 women’s final in Barcelona, Devers and Torrence took a victory lap together, laughing and skipping and hopping, four years after Torrence had insinuated that Devers had cheated to win.

In the feel-good interview session that followed, Devers and Torrence acted like long-lost buddies, carrying on as if Torrence had never accused “two of the three” runners who finished ahead of her in 1992 of being “dirty.” Torrence never named names then, of course, but two of them were Devers and Ottey.

“When fans see Gwen and me on the track, they know it’s going to be a great show. It’s not a rivalry,” Devers said. “It’s about great competition. That doesn’t mean that we don’t like each other.”

The sorest men’s loser was the men’s defending champion, Linford Christie of Great Britain. He was charged with two false starts in the final, resulting in an automatic disqualification. Never before has the defending 100-meter champion lost the race even before starting it.

The incredulous Christie, a 36-year-old grandfather, protested, refusing to leave the track for five minutes. Finally, the referee, John Chaplin of Pullman, Wash., had to come onto the track and tell him that he had no grounds for an appeal before he would relinquish his lane.

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“If this were anywhere else except for the U.S.A., I would have won the appeal,” Christie said. He declined to elaborate.

Christie still ran the 100 meters, racing up the track after the event to congratulate his training partner, silver medalist Frankie Fredericks of Namibia, who finished behind Bailey in 9.89. Christie then deposited his shoes into a trash basket.

That’s when the trash talk began. Told by a reporter that Trinidad and Tobago’s Ato Boldon, a UCLA senior who won the bronze medal in 9.90, made a disparaging remark about the false starts, Christie sought out Boldon underneath the stadium. A heated exchange followed. Blows were prevented when Fredericks and two U.S. sprinters, Michael Marsh and Jon Drummond, came between them.

It was the U.S. male sprinters’ quickest reaction all night. For the first time since 1976 in a non-boycotted Olympics and only the third time in 100 years, the American men were shut out in the 100.

Dennis Mitchell finished fourth in 9.99, Marsh fifth in 10.0. Drummond failed to qualify for the final.