Showcases for the No-Shows

By Richard Stengel

Olympic records fall in rival Soviet-bloc games

As was often pointed out during the Olympics in Los Angeles, the athletes were competing not only against each other but against invisible opponents: the athletes of the Soviet-bloc nations that boycotted the Games. The question persisted: How might the results have differed if the Soviets and East Europeans had been there? Some answers, plus a few tantalizing speculations, emerged from two Communist-sponsored meets last week. In Moscow and several Soviet-bloc countries an event called the Friendship '84 Games was being staged. In Hungary the eighth annual Budapest Grand Prix was held. The news from both cities was not all that reassuring to Olympic champions. In all, more than 20 Soviet-bloc athletes posted better marks than those in Los Angeles, and at least seven of them set new world records.

Friendship '84 was conducted in accordance with the rules, regulations and traditions of the Olympic movement. While protesting that these were not "alternative" games, Soviet officials played up the parallels whenever possible, starting with blatantly nationalist ceremonies. On a gray and drizzly afternoon, the opening festivities at the 103,000-seat capacity Lenin Stadium were as much a political display as an athletic one. To the rousing tunes of a huge military band, 8,000 Soviet athletes marched around the oval with the same stiff-legged gait as Soviet troops. There were no marchers from any of the other 29 countries participating in Moscow. A burst of color was provided by hundreds of brightly costumed folk dancers who fluttered across the field. After an exhibition of well-drilled gymnastics came the finale: 2,000 doves flew out of the stadium while the crowd chanted, "For sunny peace, yes, yes, yes; for nuclear war, no, no, no."

Next it was the Soviet-bloc women who put on a show. The Friendship winners were swifter than the Olympic gold medalists in every distance event in track: the 800, 1,500 and 3,000 meters. East Germany's Marita Koch bettered Valerie Brisco-Hook's time in the 400 meters by .67 of a second. Yet it was the water that seemed to be their element. At Moscow's Olympic pool, the crowd bellowed its approval as four East German women set a world record in the 400-meter freestyle relay. In the women's 100-meter freestyle, both Kristin Otto and Birgit Meineke of East Germany beat the winning time of Nancy Hogshead and Carrie Steinseifer of the U.S., who tied for the gold medal. "Luchshe chem Los Angeles" (Better than Los Angeles) was the phrase used over and over by the Moscow announcers.

The phrase was heard less often when it came to the men's events. In the 24 track-and-field events, the Soviet-bloc men outdid their hypothetical Olympic rivals in nine. Power, not speed, was their forte. In the brawny field events--hammer, javelin, discus and shotput--three Soviet athletes and one East German exceeded the winning distances in Los Angeles. In the pole vault, the high-flying Konstantin Volkov of the the U.S.S.R. cleared 19 ft. 1/4in., two inches higher than the winning Olympic vault. Five world records were achieved in the pool. "The water is fast here," said one Soviet fan, and 6-ft. 4-in. Sergei Zabolotnov proved it. In the 200-meter backstroke, he defeated the European record holder, East Germany's Dirk Richter, in a world record time of 1:58.41 sec., slicing more than half a second off the record held by the U.S.'s Rick Carey, who took the gold in the event at Los Angeles.

The Budapest Grand Prix had been billed as a showdown between East and West, since a number of Americans and other non-Communist athletes were scheduled to appear. In the end, all the best-known Westerners except U.S. Supersprinter Carl Lewis decided to withdraw. Lewis, moody behind dark glasses, made little headway with the international press corps, but he had no trouble winning the 100 meters with a time of 10.05, .06 slower than his Olympic mark. Eight other winners at Budapest, all of them from boycotting countries, posted records better than those of Los Angeles.

Another Grand Prix winner was Yuri Sedikh, the tanklike Soviet hammer thrower. He seemed to expend more effort in getting to Budapest than in tossing the hammer more than 22 ft. farther than the winning mark in Los Angeles, setting a new world record. After his coach forbade him to participate, he appealed to the Soviet Sports Minister, who allowed him to make the trip. After his triumph, he appeared wistful in an interview. A winning statistic is still only a statistic, and to athletes there remains something magical about a gold medal. Sedikh may have been speaking for several of the victorious Easterners when he said, "I'd like to be an Olympic champion. Who knows if I can win the Olympic gold?" --By Richard Stengel.

Reported by Erik Amfitheatrof/Moscow and John Moody/Budapest

With reporting by Erik Amfitheatrof/Moscow, John Moody/Budapest