Javelin Design Change Means Joyner-Kersee to Lose Record

After withstanding athletes’ challenges for nearly a decade, Jackie Joyner-Kersee’s heptathlon world record will be set aside at the end of the year because of a design change to the javelin.

The IAAF, world governing body of track and field, said Monday that a new javelin with a slightly different center of gravity--allowing it to land more frequently on its tip--will go into use beginning April 1. The new model will not go as far as the old.

Joyner-Kersee’s world record of 7,291 points, set at the 1988 Seoul Olympics--the javelin throw is part of the heptathlon--and the women’s javelin record of 262 feet 5 inches, set by Petra Felke of East Germany on Sept. 9, 1988, will be erased and new world records will go into the books Jan. 1, taken from the best performance with the new javelin.

“It is not a political decision, it’s a technical decision,” said Giorgio Reineri, an IAAF spokesman.

Reineri added that the marks of Joyner-Kersee and Felke would be noted in the records “as coming under different conditions.”

Boxing

Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson faces a closed hearing at Montgomery County (Md.) Correction Center on Wednesday for throwing a television last week, and any penalties will be levied that day, the county’s department of corrections said.

Department spokesman Eric Seleznow said jail officials cited Tyson for destruction of property, assault on correctional staff and disorderly conduct.

A disciplinary panel will determine Tyson’s level of responsibility. Penalties could include loss of privileges and loss of credit for good behavior.

Tyson is serving a one-year sentence for assaulting two men after a minor traffic accident in August in suburban Washington.

Skiing

Jim Moran, a member of the 1998 U.S. Olympic freestyle ski team, was in critical condition with a serious head injury after crashing in a weekend competition at Vail, Colo.

“He’s been on a respirator since admission to the facility,” Swedish Medical Center spokeswoman Jessica Anderson said. “He is still in critical condition and he has a severe head injury.”

Alexandra Meissnitzer defeated fellow Austrian Anita Wachter by .065 of a second at Are, Sweden, virtually clinching the World Cup giant slalom title.

Competing on the world’s only lighted GS course, Meissnitzer had a combined time of 2 minutes 12.97 seconds after two near-perfect runs down the Gastrappet. She was fastest in both runs.

Meissnitzer leads Wachter in the standings, 620-436, and needs only two top-30 finishes in the last two races to clinch the title. Meissnitzer also could win the downhill and super-G titles.

After two men’s races, Myka Myllylae of Finland has two gold medals at the Nordic Ski World Championship at Ramsau, Austria. Bjorn Daehlie of Norway, the most successful Winter Olympian and the winningest cross-country skier in history, has one bronze. Myllylae won the opening 30- and 10-kilometer classical style cross-country races.

Miscellany

Goran Ivanisevic and Australian Open runner-up Thomas Enqvist won their first-round matches in the Guardian Direct Cup indoor tennis tournament at London. Ivanisevic beat Jan Siemerink, 6-3, 0-6, 7-6 (7-1), and Enqvist needed only 57 minutes to defeat Switzerland’s Marc Rosset, 6-1, 6-3.

Iowa State running back Robert Lewis was listed in fair condition in a hospital at Ames, Iowa, after he was stabbed in the chest while trying to stop a fight involving a friend at a nightclub early Sunday.

NFL veteran Raleigh McKenzie has agreed to a deal with the Green Bay Packers. Last year, McKenzie played guard for the San Diego Chargers. Terms weren’t disclosed.

Quarterback Heath Shuler’s contract with the New Orleans Saints was terminated with two years left. Shuler, a first-round draft pick in 1994, hasn’t played since Nov. 16, 1997 because of a foot injury.

The IOC plans to end its investigation this weekend into possible misconduct by members implicated in the Salt Lake City scandal. Olympic officials said the six-man investigative panel will begin meetings late this week at International Olympic Committee headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, then make recommendations to the IOC executive board.

On Monday, Chilean IOC member Sergio Santander, one of those facing expulsion, resigned as president of his country’s national Olympic committee.

The NCAA Football Rules Committee made several rules changes at its meeting in San Diego last week, including the decision that visible bandannas are illegal.

Also beginning this season, intentional grounding will result in a loss of down at the spot of the foul. Holding behind the neutral zone will be a 10-yard penalty marked off from the previous line of scrimmage.

Randy Harvey is on assignment