Golden Moments : Shining Memories Will Remain Long After Disappointments Fade

It would be easy to sit here and chronicle all that went wrong with these Olympic Games.

You know, it wasn’t the heat, it was the stupidity.

That is not the intention. Yes, there was some trouble getting to venues, if you consider trouble a bus driver asking a writer from Kazakhstan for directions. Yes, the organizing committee came to be known as A-CLOG.

Yes, Harry Houdini would have had trouble escaping one of these flesh-packed MARTA trains.

Yet, from out on the Olympic fields, pools, landing pits, arenas, finish lines and pingpong tables of dreams, there came some terrific results, some of which are just now becoming available on Info ‘96, the IBM computer system that provided timely monthly updates.

The Games offered 17 days of glory, and one morning of horror. More than Michael Johnson and Carl Lewis and Karch Kiraly, though, these were the Olympics of the Woman. The U.S. women won team gold medals in gymnastics, soccer, softball and basketball, while the U.S. men, well, they didn’t do so hot.

Amanda Beard clutched a teddy bear and Kerri Strug clutched her ankle, then a pen to sign with agent Leigh Steinberg. Michelle Smith flexed, Fu Mingxia flew, Mia Hamm was a marked woman, and Lisa Fernandez grunted.

But for all the griping, grousing and groping that went on here, some of it actually outside the media center, it would be tough to disagree that these were, in fact, the finest Olympics since Lillehammer.

“I think this is the best,” freestyle wresting bronze medalist Bruce Baumgartner said. “Except for the tragedy in Centennial Park, I think these are going to be one of the great Games of all time. I know it’s getting a lot of static by the media. But, for us, the food was good, the housing, it was small but nice, and the people were fantastic. I just think it’s been a great Olympics.”

10 GREATEST MOMENTS

1. Michael Johnson’s double in the 400 and 200 meters. He came, he saw, he beat the pants off everybody. Those who were there won’t forget Johnson streaking down the Olympic Stadium track in the 200 en route to his world-record time of 19.32. Track buffs say the time was as stunning as Bob Beamon’s long jump at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

Consider: Italy’s Pietro Mennea’s world record in the 200 had stood for 17 years before Johnson broke it with a time of 19.66 at the Olympic trials.

2. Carl Lewis’ ninth gold medal. Does this guy have a flair for the dramatic? He made the U.S. team by one inch at the Olympic trials, qualified for the long jump finals on his last jump, then won the event with a leap of 27-10 3/4. Lewis joined discus thrower Al Oerter as the only athletes to win the same event in four Olympics.

After Lewis’ leap into history, Oerter commented: “Carl is making it very difficult for me. Now, I have to come back in 2000. I’ll be 64 years old. I’m too old for this.”

3. Kerri Strug’s giant leap. Not since “Bambi” premiered have so many wept. Strug, a squeaky-voiced also-ran on the star-studded U.S. gymnastics squad, sprang to glory with a dramatic last vault despite two torn ligaments in her left ankle. With the United States trying to clinch its first team gymnastics gold, America needed her. “I could feel it slipping away,” Strug said later. “I felt like I had to do it.”

OK, America didn’t need her. The U.S. team had clinched the gold before Strug’s vault, but you can be sure NBC’s John Tesh wasn’t working the calculator to figure out the math.

Bottom line was Strug didn’t know her vault didn’t matter. The question that begged was whether she should have.

4. Naim “Pocket Hercules” Suleymanoglu of Turkey wins a third gold medal in weightlifting. To appreciate his feat, go to the kitchen and try lifting your refrigerator over your head. Suleymanoglu, who is 4 feet 11 and 141 pounds, won an unprecedented third gold with a lift of 413 1/4 pounds. After the competition, NBC’s Bob “Pocket Vin Scully” Costas couldn’t wait to interview him.

5. Australia defeats U.S. women, 2-1, in softball. Hardened baseball scribes left Golden Park in Columbus, Ga., calling it one of the best baseball games they’d ever see. The Aussies trailed 1-0, in the bottom of the 10th when Joanne Brown hit a two-out, two-run home run off Lisa Fernandez to hand the U.S. only its second loss in international competition in a decade. Fernandez had retired 29 batters in a row before giving up the homer on a pitch she called a “fattie.”

It didn’t help that the United States would have won the game in regulation except that Dani Tyler forgot to touch home plate after hitting a home run in the fifth inning.

6. Dan O’Brien wins the decathlon . . . finally. Until this summer, O’Brien had been the most hyped Olympian never to have made an Olympic team. Four years after the “Dan and Dave” marketing campaign that went bust after O’Brien no-heighted in pole vault at the Olympic trials and failed to make the team, O’Brien could at last be introduced at parties as “World’s Greatest Athlete.”

Actually, it wasn’t O’Brien’s best decathlon effort. He failed to break his world record and fell 23 points shy of Daley Thompson’s Olympic mark but, oh, what a relief.

7. Kurt Angle wins gold for Dave Schultz. No one shed more tears on a victory stand than Angle after he won the 220-pound freestyle wrestling title in a controversial judges’ decision against Iran’s Abbas Jadidi.

Angle was the lone U.S. wrestler representing the Dave Schultz Wrestling Club, formed by Nancy Schultz after her husband was murdered in their suburban Philadelphia driveway last Jan. 26. Angle and Schultz had wrestled at Team Foxcatcher, funded by multimillionaire John duPont, who has been charged with Schultz’s murder.

The postmatch drama was only heightened by the Iranian Jadidi, who went into a tirade after his defeat.

8. Michelle Smith wins three golds for Ireland. This was tough to take for Americans who thought the United States deserved to win every swimming medal. Because Smith’s times had dropped dramatically in recent months, and her husband once tested positive for steroids, the witch hunt was on. U.S. swimmer Janet Evans, former gold medalist in the 400 meters, was angered that Smith was allowed to enter the race because she missed the sign-up deadline.

“There have been a lot of accusations,” Evans said delicately of Smith’s improvement. “Of which I have not made any.”

Smith tested clean and somewhere, in a private moment, must have hoisted a pint in America’s face.

9. Dot Richardson does it again. The 34-year-old shortstop/orthopedic surgeon for the U.S. softball team knows how to steal a spotlight. Before the Olympics, she had hit two home runs in 61 exhibition games. In nine Olympic games, she hit three, including a two-run blast in the gold-medal game to beat the Chinese, 3-1. Richardson’s home run curled just inside the right-field foul pole, although the Chinese protested vehemently.

The next day, Richardson boarded a noon flight back to Los Angeles to resume her third year of residency at County USC Medical Center.

10. Amy Van Dyken wins four golds. Her history-making victory in the 50-meter freestyle gave hope to all high school misfits who used to hide in locker rooms with towels over their heads. “This victory is for all the nerds,” she said.

Van Dyken became the first American woman to win four gold medals at a single Olympics.

GREAT MOMENTS ON THE BUBBLE

--The U.S. women’s soccer team wins gold medal against China. NBC didn’t discover this feel-good, ratings-whopper story until it was almost too late, prompting a U.S. soccer official to scoff: “NBC still doesn’t get it.”

--Karch Kiraly, a.k.a. the Spike King, wins third gold. Kiraly, who won two indoor gold medals, teamed with Kent Steffes to win the first gold in beach volleyball. The match of the tournament was a semifinal shootout between Kiraly-Steffes and rivals Sinjin Smith and Carl Henkel. In what has been called the best beach volleyball game ever played, Kiraly-Steffes won in overtime, 17-15.

--Amanda Beard. She took home two individual silver medals and a relay gold in swimming and doesn’t turn 15 until October.

--Nigeria beats Brazil in men’s soccer. This was an upset comparable to the U.S. men’s Dream Team losing in basketball. Brazil, defending World Cup champions, figured to run the table. Nigeria rallied from a 3-1 deficit in the 78th minute to win, 4-3, in sudden death. The Nigerians went on to beat Argentina in the final.

--Alexander Popov beats Gary Hall Jr. in the 50-meter freestyle. The 100-yard dash of swimming, and just as exciting.

--Yachting, the Spanish women’s 470. Skipper Theresa Zabell and crewman Begona Via Dufresne brought home the gold for Spain. (A personal favorite).

WE EXPECTED MORE FROM. . .

--Fernando Vargas. The Oxnard fighter couldn’t live up to the hype of being dubbed the next Oscar De La Hoya. Vargas, a welterweight, was beaten in the second round by a Romanian.

--Rebecca Twigg. The two-time Olympic medalist in cycling quit the team in a huff--or, as one Philadelphia scribe wondered, “Was that a Huffy?”--after getting into an argument with U.S. cycling Coach Chris Carmichael. Twigg wanted her personal coach at the Olympics. Carmichael said no, so Twigg took her bike and went home to Colorado.

--Jackie Joyner-Kersee. A thigh injury denied her the chance of winning a third gold medal in the heptathlon, though Joyner-Kersee did manage to win the bronze in the long jump.

--The men’s volleyball team, U.S. Cycling, the men’s 400 relay team, Gwen Torrence, Janet Evans, Billy Payne.