BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS: DAY 3 : Losing Ground, Gaining Stature

BARCELONA â€”  The Spanish call him “the Son of the Wind.”

The journalists who waited for him in furnace heat of a cramped cellar room for a news conference for which he was 40 minutes late have a somewhat different interpretation of what kind of son he is.

But Carl Lewis, by any definition, should be a national idol, a beloved figure of sports, like Babe Ruth or Joe Louis. He is, in fact, the Babe Ruth of his sport. He has done things no one did before or is likely to do again.

He has six gold medals. He is the world record-holder in the 100 meters, the Olympic record-holder in the 100 meters. He is the only man ever to repeat as Olympic long jump champion, and it is an event in which he went 11 years without a defeat. It finally took the greatest jump in history to beat him for the first time in nearly 150 competitions.

Yet he is hardly the beloved figure his exploits entitle him to be. Sponsors shunned him. The media resented him. The word jerk surfaced in conversations about him. Arrogance got good play, too.

He was a showman. He showed up for contests in spangles that seemed borrowed from the Folies Bergere or a bullfight. He managed always to come off with the vaguely superior air we normally associate with the British upper classes. But he was from New Jersey.

What is wrong with Carl Lewis? Why is Magic Johnson the darling of these Barcelona Games whereas Carl Lewis is almost like the man who came to dinner--and everybody wondered who invited him.

In the first place, Lewis comes off as a cold, calculating, commercial cad who cares little for his sport as sport and sees it only in its money-making aspects.

He has made a career of antagonizing reporters--and then complaining that they write negatively about him. He has shown up late for two news conferences to date, an hour for one, 40 minutes for the other, even though they were arranged by one of his advertising sponsors.

At one of them, the question-and-answer period was held up for a further 15 minutes while his sponsor held up his track shoe for photographs and endless publicity messages, which caused one British journalist to growl, “We didn’t come here to interview a shoe.”

There is the matter of Lewis’ sexual preference, never proved one way or the other. But that seems hardly to account for the animosity. The facts of the matter seem to be, people can’t stand Carl Lewis because he can’t stand them.

It is sad, because it is possible he is the greatest runner of all time and deserves a place in history not pockmarked with petty bickerings.

There is the additional consideration that he is what Aristotle called “victim of undeserved misfortune” in these Games.

By all lights, Lewis should be in the lists for the 100- and 200-meter races as well as the long jump. He unaccountably finished down the track in the 100 at the trials in New Orleans. He missed the 200 by 0.01 seconds.

What happened? Is he over the hill? Well, you begin with the fact that only last August, he set the world record in the 100, 9.86. How can you go over the hill in seven months? He’s 31, but the likelihood is, he is a very young, fit 31.

The bulk of the evidence is, Lewis was ill the week of the trials. You don’t need a stethoscope or X-ray to prove it. You merely need to look at his times.

He had to be ill. Lewis is the most consistent performer in track and field history. He does not have off-days when his temperature is 98.6, his heart rate 60 and his blood pressure normal.

He made no excuses at the time, but a doctor later discovered a sinus infection that dehydrated him and robbed him of his effectiveness in the heat and humidity of the bayous. Lewis, a notoriously poor starter, relies on a mid-race surge to overwhelm the opposition. It never kicked in at New Orleans. He finished an ignominious sixth.

Lewis tow-roped that same field in a pre-Olympic meet in the south of France only last week, further proof that a virus, not Dennis Mitchell, beat him at New Orleans.

In 1964, America had another world record-holder sprinter, Bob Hayes of Florida A&M;, later to achieve success as a football player.

When the Olympic trials came up at Randall’s Island in New York that year, Hayes was ill. He couldn’t compete. He was off the team.

But because the Olympics were late that year--postponed until October to avoid the monsoon season in Tokyo, the U.S. Olympic committee authorized a second set of trials in the fall. At those, Hayes was healthy and obliterated his competition.

In the Olympics, Hayes ran a world record, the first 10-flat in history. The Games would have been denied one of their bravura, historical performances if Hayes hadn’t run.

Lewis got no reprises. It’s a historic injustice, further evidence of the Russian roulette the USOC plays with its trials selections.

Lewis is used to injustice. At the World Games in Rome in 1987, when the Canadian sprinter, Ben Johnson, suddenly sprang a 9.83 100 on the world, Lewis was apoplectic. He hinted darkly that Johnson hadn’t run that time, anabolic steroids had.

The world put it down to sour grapes. They scoffed with a, “There goes Carl Lewis again.” He was simply a poor loser.

Then, in the Olympics, Johnson ran a 9.79 and, when he took his urine test, the world found out that Lewis was right.

Lewis was awarded the gold--and, incidentally, the official Olympic record for his 9.92. But the method suggested he inherited rather than won the medal. It was as if Johnson had merely been wearing the wrong-colored shoes or shorts.

The ultimate irony is, Johnson is in the Barcelona Olympics sprints. He has served his time and is back, so to speak, on the streets--or at least the track. Lewis is not.

Is the American method of picking its Olympic team on the basis of one pressure-packed, sudden-death dash suicidal?

Hardly an Olympic year goes by that some world-record hurdler doesn’t crash into a hurdle, run into a fellow racer or slip at the start. A lifetime of prowess goes down the drain. Only this year, the world’s best decathlete, Dan O’Brien, unaccountably crapped out on the pole vault and missed qualifying for the team.

Is it even sensible? If it costs you Carl Lewis and Dan O’Brien--and almost cost you Bob Hayes--is it even defensible? Would you leave Michael Jordan off if he missed a foul shot at the buzzer?

In a funny way, Lewis could get the affection in defeat he never achieved in victory.

Carl the Conqueror is a rich man. He has more foreign cars than the Prince of Monaco. He has a mansion in Houston. But he has never been able to achieve the popularity his exploits entitle him to.

Perhaps now, he will. Nothing so became King Carl as the graciousness with which he accepted his failure.

He was asked whether his experience could call into question the U.S. method of picking its Olympians, and he carefully allowed it was a good question, but cautioned hastily, “I knew the rules. I knew what had to be done.”

But, he added, he thought that, at the end of this year, the USOC should examine its rules and “might want to make some changes.”

If so, they will come too late to put Lewis where he clearly belongs--in his third Olympics sprints. But, there again, Lewis took the high road.

“What am I supposed to do--commit suicide?” he asked good-humoredly.

The man who only last August ran a world-record 9.86 100 will not even be in the heats. Only in America.

He will have to make do with the long jump, the only event for which he qualified. In New Orleans, he peeled off a second place jump, then passed on his last two attempts to save his waning strength for the 200.

Will he be able to win a gold medal again, now that he will not have to squander precious strength and speed in the sprints and can focus entirely on the long jump?

He lost a race, but gained a country. He can now be perceived as victim of arrogant power, not a possessor of it.

It is a new Carl Lewis. The Son of the Wind is a man of the people. He has faced adversity with style and grace. He is already idolized in this part of the world. Now that he is a symbol of persecution, perhaps even the eyes of Texas will brim over.

He might even start arriving on time for his news conferences.