THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 1, 1996 TAG: 9608010613
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: TOM ROBINSON
LENGTH: 87 lines
Lawrence Johnson's dream of beating Sergei Bubka for the Olympic pole vault gold medal? Forget about it. Bubka the King is dead. Again.
The Ukrainian, who stunningly no-heighted in the 1992 Olympic final in Barcelona, walked away from the vaulting pit Wednesday with a screeching Achilles' tendon. He took no attempts in the qualifying round. Said the pain was too much.
He is gone.
Okkert Brits, the prodigious South African? The guy thought he could push Bubka. He started vaulting at 18 feet, 4 1/2 inches. He took three attempts. He failed on each.
Brits is gone.
Johnson lives. By the thinnest of margins - barely clearing his final height of 18-8 1/4 on his last attempt - the Great Bridge graduate survived to vault another day, in this case, Friday night's final.
There he will join 13 other men who also got out of the windy, unusually wild preliminary round with their pride intact, vaulting precision be damned. And it is anybody's race.
Now that Bubka and Brits are history, you might think Johnson, the American-record holder who's gone higher than all but one vaulter in the final, would be the Man. He is not. Not off of Wednesday.
Johnson, 22, had a rough day. His technique was all over the map, and it forced him into two pressure-packed third attempts - at 18-4 1/2 and 18-8 1/4 - to stay in the competition.
Somehow, he made them. He also hurt himself. Johnson sprained his right ankle when he tried to abort his second attempt at 18-8 1/4 by pulling up at the end of the runway.
He hobbled around. He got taped up. And then, already aware that Bubka and Brits were out, and with a stadium full of screaming people, Johnson produced that tremendous clutch vault to live on.
Replays showed no daylight between Johnson's chest and the bar as he dropped past, but the bar never quivered. It made Johnson the last of 11 men to clear that height, one fewer than is needed to fill out the minimum 12-man final. So they added three who handled 18-4 1/2 on one attempt, including American Scott Huffman, and Friday's scene was set.
``Of course there was pressure,'' Johnson said, letting loose an edgy laugh. ``It was my third attempt at a height I knew would have to be jumped to make qualifying, and then with the injury occurring . . . yeah, it didn't look too bright.''
He gave himself a talking to before the vault. Something along the lines of questioning his manhood, appealing to his character. ``We worked all year for this,'' Johnson said he said. ``It's something that we can't just come out and give away.
``In addition to that there's 80,000 people in the stands supporting me, and there's millions of Americans supporting me from home on televisions. You just can't give up in a situation like that.''
Johnson's guts were on display at the end, but his nerves showed all day. He needed the most vaults, eight, to advance. During the interminable waits vaulters must endure, Johnson sat and paced and jogged and walked over for a bottle of water and signaled into the stands to U.S. coach Doug Brown, who once coached Johnson at the University of Tennessee.
He kept changing the size of his poles. He took deep breaths. Sometimes he waited until the end of the two minutes in which vaulters must complete an attempt, and other times he went right away. Anything to try and outguess the swirling headwinds that gave everybody trouble.
``He just had a lot of jitters, I think,'' Huffman said. ``I could tell by watching his run. He was just pushing real hard. He tends to do that in a bigger meet because he's so young. He just tries so hard.''
Had Johnson not qualified, Brown said, ``I don't think it would've been considered an upset like a guy like Bubka or Brits not making the final, because he's young and this is his first Games.
``But we would've all been very disappointed because his expectations, as well as ours, were that he would make the final. And he has.''
Johnson will not train today, Brown said. He will rest and receive treatment for his ankle and prepare to start fresh Friday as one of 14 men closer than ever to their goal.
Johnson's perfect final was ruined, though, when Bubka walked away, and that disappoints him.
``In no way, shape, form or fashion'' is he happy Bubka is gone, Johnson said. ``I seriously believed that I would be competing for the gold medal, and it would be much better for me to be jumping for the gold with Sergei in the competition.
``But I'll go after Bubka another day.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
KNIGHT-RIDDER
Lawrence Johnson, on his third and final try Wednesday, cleared 18
feet, 8 1/4 inches.
KEYWORDS: OLYMPIC GAMES 1996 POLE VAULTING by CNB