Heptathlon Champion Flops but Doesn’t Fret

Shades of Dan O’Brien?

DeDee Nathan, the world heptathlon leader, didn’t think the same fate that befell O’Brien in the 1992 U.S. Olympic Trials would happen to her after failing to clear a height in the high jump in the U.S. Outdoor Track and Field Championships on Thursday.

“I’m not worried,” Nathan said after three misses at 5 feet 7 1/4 inches. “I’ll finish [the two-day, seven-event competition] and be in the top three.”

That’s far from where O’Brien finished seven years ago, when he went in as the favorite in the decathlon, failed to clear a height in the pole vault, wound up 11th and did not make the American team.

The meet is the qualifier for the world championships at Seville, Spain, in August, with the top three finishers in each event making the team--provided they have met the qualifying standard.

That probably will work in Nathan’s favor, even if she doesn’t finish in the top three after today’s final three heptathlon events. That’s because she is one of only two Americans--Shelia Burrell is the other--who have met the qualifying standard of 6,000 points, and the eventual top three aren’t expected to reach that mark.

Although she still was in last place in the field of 11 with 2,866 points, she trailed third-place Nicole Haynes by only 634 points. That, she figured, would not be an insurmountable total to overcome in today’s final events, the long jump, javelin and 800 meters.

Burrell was the leader with 3,585 points.

In Thursday’s finals, UCLA’s Seilalu Sua, three-time NCAA champion in the women’s discus, won her second straight national title at 203-8; LaMark Carter won his second consecutive men’s triple jump title, soaring a wind-aided 56-3 1/4 inches; Alan Culpepper, runner-up in the 5,000 meters the past two years, won the 10,000 in 28:22.46; Dawn Ellerbe took her fourth women’s hammer throw title in five years, setting a meet record of 212-5 on the final attempt of the competition; and Elizabeth Jackson took the women’s 3,000 steeplechase at 10:07.23, the second-fastest by an American.

After the first five events of the decathlon, Chris Huffins, the defending champion, led Stephen Moore by 245 points with 4,523.