Word: heptathlon
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...field. For Dan, who unexpectedly sat out the Barcelona Games after failing to qualify in the pole vault, the 44-point margin of victory had the sweet taste of comeback: "This may not have been the Olympics, but I'm really happy." Next March, indomitable Dan goes for the heptathlon record...
...heptathlon and long-jump champion of the 1988 Games, she became the greatest -- and perhaps best known -- woman athlete in the world. Her world- record point total in the seven-event heptathlon (7,291) is regarded as virtually unmatchable. But one warm night in Tokyo last August, the superhuman Jackie Joyner-Kersee seemed momentarily mortal. She pulled a hamstring muscle in the 200-m race and left the world championships on a stretcher. "I thought my career was over," she says. It was just a temporary abdication though...
After therapy, Joyner-Kersee, 30, is back in form, and favored to become the first to win the Olympic heptathlon twice. But these days Joyner-Kersee seems less concerned about her place in athletic history than with using her good fortune to help out in her hometown. Last November she chartered a plane to take 114 kids from East St. Louis, Illinois, to see the Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City. "People think it's special to be an all-around athlete," she says. "But it's more important to be an all-around person...
...wasn't always that bad in East St. Louis. Katherine Dunham, a grande dame of the dance, was able to operate a studio in the city in the late 1960s. Heptathlon gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee recalls a happy childhood there and still returns occasionally from the West Coast to visit friends. But today the hottest ticket in East St. Louis is a ticket out of it. The two high schools produce perennial state champions in football and basketball, putting - a few gifted athletes on the road to college, hoping for stardom in the N.F.L. or N.B.A. For other youngsters...
Jackie Joyner-Kersee was jumping for joy. After copping the heptathlon gold, she returned last week to her first love, the long jump. But the wind in the Olympic stadium was tricky, and she trailed Heike Drechsler of East Germany for most of the competition. "I kept feeding myself positive information," she remarked afterward. "I kept saying, 'You can do it, you can do it.' " Indeed she could. On the fifth jump, Joyner-Kersee soared 24 ft. 3 1/2 in., the second best performance of her career. When it was clear that she had won, husband and coach Bob Kersee...