Not All Are Made to be Broken : TRACK AND FIELD

An unassailable record in track and field?

Such a beast does not exist, as African distance runners have reminded us almost weekly this summer.

Brutus Hamilton, the former University of California and U.S. Olympic track coach, learned it to his chagrin after publishing his “Table of the Ultimates of Human Effort in Track and Field” in 1934. Hamilton took every event in the sport and attempted to establish the marks that represented the outer limits of human potential. Among them: 10.3 seconds in the 100-meter sprint, 14 feet 4 3/8 inches in the pole vault, 57 feet in the shotput.

By 1952, 11 of Hamilton’s “ultimates” had been eclipsed, so he revised and upgraded those marks. New “maximum performances” were set: 10.06 seconds in the 100 meters, 15-9 in the pole vault, 60 feet in the shotput.

Since 1952, every record on Hamilton’s fantasy list has been broken at least once.

Bob Beamon’s long-jump record of 29 feet 2 1/2 inches, set at the 1968 Olympics, was supposed to last from here to the millennium, but didn’t even make it to the Barcelona Olympics--being broken by two inches in 1991 by Mike Powell.

Never is not a practical concept in track. But of all the records currently on the books, the one with the best long-term staying potential is Michael Johnson’s gold-medal-winning time in the 200-meter sprint at the Atlanta Olympics: 19.32 seconds.

Before Johnson broke the world record twice in 1996, the 200-meter mark had been lowered by only .11 of a second in 28 years--from Tommie Smith’s 19.83 in 1968 to Pietro Mennea’s 19.72 in 1979. Mennea’s record stood for nearly 17 years before Johnson broke it by .06 of a second, 19.66, at the U.S. Olympic trials in June 1996.

Less than six weeks later, Johnson smashed the record again--lowering it by .34 of a second with a jaw-dropping burst of 19.32.

Even Johnson was astonished by his other-worldly time.

“I’ve never put limits on myself, and I always thought I was capable of running 19.50,” he said at last year’s world championships in Athens. “But a 19.32 has set a big new standard.”

Said Pete Cava of USA Track and Field, “That one is going to stick around for a while. The only one who could break it is Michael Johnson.”

In two years, Johnson has yet to come close. He hasn’t broken 20 seconds since Atlanta and his 1998 personal best, 20.31, is virtually a second off his pace of Aug. 1, 1996.