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When the other U.S. hurdler supreme, Intermediate Specialist Renaldo Nehemiah, abdicated for the love of the San Francisco 49ers two years ago, Greg Foster was the party to whom he bequeathed the favored status. A touchy fellow sometimes, Foster was more pleased to have received the gift than to have had to hear about it ever since. The Games were supposed to lead him into the sunlight, but instead they gave him a new football player to shadow. University of Pittsburgh Defensive Back Roger Kingdom caught Foster by a .03 blink, and neither of them even realized it until the replay lit up the Scoreboard first and Kingdom next. In Foster's opinion, "It was a false start and they didn't recall it," but he showed a new side in losing to a man and not a memory. Graciously, he accompanied Kingdom on his victory lap, as Bronze Medalist Arto Bryggare of Finland watched them. "I was looking for a rare race to beat Foster," he said. "Kingdom had it."
If the 800-and 1,500-meter races have not been British realms in the time of Steve Ovett, 28, and Sebastian Coe, 27, they have at least been British subjects. Ovett and Coe split those gold medals in Moscow, but by three and four years, they were the senior members in the final heat of the Los Angeles 800, which introduced a new legend, the Brazilian Juantorena, Joaquim Cruz, 21. "In my country football [soccer] is first, then volleyball," he said. "Track and field is last. I hope this will change something. I hope. I can't tell you my feeling, it is too strong." Cruz's streamlined ease moved Coe, the world record holder (1981) and 800 runner-up, to say poetically, "Clocks have nothing to do with Cruz." Joaquim locked away the race in overdrive. "This man doesn't worry about the speed he's running," said Coe. "The guy was just a little bit stronger, just a little bit fitter and just a little bit faster, just when it really mattered. He is a supreme champion." And it was Cuban Alberto Juantorena's 1:43.50 Olympic record of eight years ago that he broke.
From either end, the 800 was compelling: the straggler was Ovett. Just to make it into the final eight, he had required a desperate dive in the semi. "Steve," said Seb softly, "don't you think we're getting much too old to play around with this kind of fire?" Hyperventilating and hacking a bronchial cough, Ovett finished eighth and doubled over for air. "It was as if someone pulled the plug out of my main system," he said. All along the last lap, he had been thinking, "This is an Olympic final. Don't drop out." And later: "For God's sake, don't faint." Gratefully, Ovett made it from the track to the tunnel, but once there he began to feel clammy and claustrophobic. "That was the last I saw of the world until I woke up in the hospital." He stayed two days. On the third day he returned to the track with a pasty face to win a slow heat in the 1,500. "The last time I stepped on an Olympic track, I was not going to go out on a stretcher. It's a matter of pride."