Second L.A. Track Meet Heightens Competition

There are dual track meets, and then there are dueling track meets.

First is the established but flagging Los Angeles Invitational, run by Al and Don Franken and scheduled Jan. 20 at the Sports Arena.

Muscling into their territory Feb. 11 at Staples Center is the first Powerade Indoor meet, with a three-year commitment of big sponsor money.

Despite the efforts of father Al Franken and son Don, old-school promoters who dispense sincerity and snake oil, the Invitational lost its title sponsor in 1995 and ran afoul of USA Track and Field.

Although the Invitational was a stop on USATF’s Golden Spike tour in 1999, USATF gave the Frankens little time for promotion. Attendance was barely 6,000 and TV ratings were low. Last year, USATF scheduled a meet in Pocatello, Idaho, the same weekend.

“We’re the bastard child,” Don Franken said. “Aren’t we all in this together?”

Organizers of the Staples meet speak of holding it annually on the day of the NBA All-Star game, a strong lead-in for a local telecast on Channel 4.

The Frankens speak of having nurtured track and field as a spectator sport and of having refurbished the Sports Arena track, which in places was little more than splinters.

Is this town big enough for both?

“Theoretically, it’s good,” Don Franken said of the new meet. “The more meets in L.A., the more following the sport will have. We love the sport and we’ve done more than anyone else in the country to keep it going. . . .

“It was easier when we had a sponsor. When you had Sunkist, you knew your budget. We have some supporting sponsors. We have to work harder and lean on friendships. Dad has 40 years of relationships with people and I’ve had 20-plus.

“We have probably the finest high school meet in the country. These kids start off in our youth competition, then go through the high school and college and post-collegiate stages. We’re lucky we’ve built relationships over the years.

“A lot of people in this sport do care. Certain athletes can go to Europe and get major paydays, and that’s fine. We don’t begrudge them. Most of us try to work together and build the sport. Look at the Olympic trials--they were sold out. In L.A., in the ‘80s, we were thriving. It’s only been the last 10 years that it’s been very difficult.”

Track did enjoy boom times here.

“When we had [Jim] Ryun vs. [Kip] Keino, you could almost guarantee a sellout,” Al Franken said. “Now the only person who might sell out a building is Marion Jones.”

Said Don Franken: “I don’t even know if she would. The sport on a national basis has had terrible PR. There’s nothing on ‘SportsCenter,’ nobody bringing these athletes to the public on a weekly basis. There’s a million and one heroic stories, and we haven’t conveyed them.”

The Frankens are soldiering on again this year. They have veterans Johnny Gray, Jeff Williams and Tyree Washington, as well as prep miler Ryan Hall of Big Bear and Olympic 1,500-meter bronze medalist Bernard Lagat.

“It was always a pleasure to compete in an Al Franken track meet,” said 1968 Olympic pole vault gold medalist Bob Seagren, one of 105 gold medalists who competed at the Invitational. Their names are inscribed in “Legends Lane,” the outside lane of the track. “He took care of athletes and put on a meet for athletes. In the amateur days, it was a struggle to survive.”

The Powerade meet will feature 13 of 20 U.S. track medalists at Sydney, among them sprinter Maurice Greene and women’s gold-medal pole vaulter Stacy Dragila.

“If the sport is prospering all over, we’re going to do better,” Al Franken said. “There used to be 20 indoor meets in the U.S. Some weekends, you’d have four or five. Now there’s eight or nine.

“You need to rebuild the sport and get the confidence of the media back.”

HIS HOPES ARE ON ICE

Derek Parra of San Bernardino had plenty of reasons to give up his quest for an Olympic medal.

A three-time national in-line skating champion and two-time world champion, Parra was discouraged when roller-skating wasn’t added to the 1996 Atlanta Games. He was dubious when fellow in-line skater KC Boutiette suggested he try long-track speedskating, and with good reason: Parra, a graduate of Eisenhower High in Rialto, had never skated on ice. And he was 26, with a modest but steady income from in-line sponsorships.

For every reason there was to give up, however, he found more to persevere.

One of about half a dozen in-line skaters who have made a successful transition to ice, Parra was an alternate at 5,000 meters at the Nagano Olympics and won the U.S. allround championship last year, competing at distances from 500 meters to 10,000. He led this year’s event after three races and won a spot in next weekend’s North American-Oceania Regional qualifier for the world allround championships. Having secured that, he didn’t race the final day and Jondon Travena of Fort Collins, Colo., won the U.S. allround title.

The big prize for Parra lies in Salt Lake City. He’s still making the mental and mechanical adjustments to get there.

“I had high expectations of myself,” said Parra, who will probably focus on the 1,500. “I was No. 1 in the world in in-line skating for a few years, and it’s taking longer than I expected. I had to change my training a little bit too.

“This is a sport that you need to have a lot of years on your skates to do well. You can tell when you watch the Norwegian skaters that they’ve been on skates for years. Everything they do is instinctive. Me, I’m thinking about what I have to do. It’s not instinctive, but it’s getting there.

“Roller-skating is like jumping rope. You need really quick pushes because there’s so much friction on wheels. You can’t glide. On ice, it’s the opposite. In-line skaters have to have a very quick tempo. Ice skaters push with really long strides. You need to be patient. It’s been hard to overcome for me.”

Because of delays in building the Olympic speedskating oval in Salt Lake City, Parra and his teammates have been training in Butte, Mont. His wife, Tiffany, moved with him twice and recently moved in with her parents in Florida.

Parra isn’t doing this for glory. Speedskaters are largely anonymous in the United States.

“I’d go to Europe and people know my name and they’d say, ‘Oh, I saw you on TV,’ ” he said. “Here, no one knows who you are. In Holland, it’s the national sport. It’s hard to get attention here, and that makes the sport here not very lucrative.

“Skaters over there are supposed to be amateur but earn about $200,000 a year. We pay to skate. We get grants from the USOC [he got $2,500 this year] and a monthly stipend from the U.S. speedskating federation August through March. The rest of the year you’re on your own.

“I had to give up a year’s salary in racing to chase this dream, and there are a lot of [in-line] racers who are top of the line in the U.S. who aren’t willing to give up a paycheck and change things to do this. It has been hard on my wife and me and on our relationship. It’s been a hard and rough road, but this is a dream I’m able to chase and I’m getting closer.”

HOW SWEDE IT IS

Anders Hedberg, general manager of Sweden’s national and Olympic hockey teams, bemoaned the lack of preparation time before the Salt Lake City Games.

The NHL will take a 12-day break, which won’t allow for more than two or three practices. According to the agreement among the International Ice Hockey Federation, the NHL and the NHL Players Assn., players can’t practice on even an informal basis this summer. The U.S., Canadian, Russian, Finnish, Swedish and Czech teams must select and announce eight to 12 players two weeks before the end of this season, with the rest to follow by Dec. 22.

“You have to collect your team and hope it comes together quickly,” said Hedberg, one of the first Swedes to star in the World Hockey Assn. and the NHL. “There’s no time for a lot of practices.”

Sweden, which didn’t make the medal round at Nagano, will be coached by Hardy Nilsson, coach of Djurgarden in the Swedish Elite League. Nilsson was known as a tough guy when he played for Skelleftea in the Elite League.

Hedberg, who until last season was an executive with the Toronto Maple Leafs, has a personal reason to look forward to the 2002 Games: When he played for the New York Rangers, Herb Brooks was his coach and Craig Patrick was his general manager--roles Brooks and Patrick will reprise for the U.S. at Salt Lake City.

“The fun part is on the American side, having Craig and Herbie,” said Hedberg, who flourished under Brooks’ free-skating style. “I’m happy for them and real excited about it. It’s going to be great to look over and see them.”

HERE AND THERE

Jones, a quintuple medalist at Sydney, will compete in the Mt. SAC Relays April 20-22. It will be her fifth consecutive Mt. SAC participation. . . . All eight American groups expected to bid for the right to host the 2012 Summer Olympics sent documents to the U.S. Olympic Committee by the Dec. 15 deadline. The next step comes March 1, when USOC officials suggest revisions. “We’re in the dark period now,” said Rich Perelman, a member of the L.A. bid group. Baltimore-Washington, Cincinnati, Dallas, central Florida, Houston, New York and the San Francisco Bay Area are the other bidders.

U.S. teams did well in the first half of bobsled and skeleton World Cup competition, winning five gold medals, three silvers and four bronzes. Driver Jean Racine of Waterford, Mich., and brakeman Jen Davidson of Layton, Utah, are undefeated and rank first in two-woman World Cup bobsled standings. The men’s and women’s skeleton teams ended the first half ranking first in nation’s points, the best U.S. finish ever. Jim Shea Jr. of Lake Placid, N.Y., leads the men’s individual World Cup standings. Men’s bobsled competition resumes Jan. 20 in Germany, and the women resume Feb. 1 at Calgary, Canada. Skeleton competition picks up Feb. 3 at Nagano.

The men’s Olympic downhill ski course at Snowbasin has been named “Grizzly,” a nod to local lore about a bear that roamed the area and the course’s difficult features. It will be dedicated during a downhill World Cup race Feb. 24-25, an Olympic test event.

Todd Eldredge finished third of five at the Japan Open figure skating competition Thursday in Tokyo. Alexei Yagudin of Russia and Evgeni Plushenko were 1-2, reversing their finish in the Russian championships. Maria Butyrskaya of Russia defeated Irina Slutskaya, who had topped her at the Russian championships. The U.S. pair of Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman finished third.

Ann Patrice McDonough of Colorado Springs, the defending U.S. junior ladies’ champion, moved up from fourth after the short program to win the Junior Grand Prix figure skating final at Ayr, Scotland, last month. Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto, who train in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., won the ice dance competition, and Kristen Roth and Michael McPherson--who also train in Bloomfield Hills--were second among pairs. Ryan Bradley of Colorado Springs was fifth among the men.

Only 397 days until the Salt Lake City Winter Games.