Word: mennea
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...tired to Tom Tellez, his Houston coach. "He wasn't smooth. There's been a lot of pressure on him. Only Jesse Owens would know how Carl Lewis feels after the last few years of expectations." The 19.80 Carl dashed off was no embarrassment though. Only Pietro Mennea of Italy (19.72) and Lewis himself (19.75) have run the 200 in a faster time. Mennea was in the race, incidentally, as he has been in four straight Olympic 200 finals since 1972. Imagine, a sprinter achieving such a thing, age 32. "Carl Lewis will never do it," the Italian...
...hours later, Lewis proceeded to clock 19.75 sec. in the 200, missing the record held by Italy's Pietro Mennea by a slim .03 sec. The day before, his 10.27 time won the 100 meters (his best is 9.96 sec., .01 off Jim Hines' world mark). The University of Houston senior shrugged off his Indianapolis performances. "I don't worry about times and records. I'm my own competition," he said. "And I think there are going to be some absolutely unheard-of things coming from...
...Ovett, Britain's Allan Wells won the 100-meter dash and Daley Thompson took the decathlon. With 36 nations heeding President Carter's call for a boycott over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, there was little else for the West to cheer about. Pietro Mennea, a flamboyant Italian, finished first in the 200-meter run, and Ethiopian Miruts Yifter, listed as 35 but rumored to be in his 40s, captured...
...Mennea, 28, became the first Italian runner to win a gold medal in track and field since 1960 when he finished first in the 200-meter dash. Disgusted by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, he agonized for months over whether to go to Moscow-and continued to agonize once he arrived. Said'he: "The pressure of being the favorite with no Americans here, and the bitterness of the boycott ... cracked my nerves." On the track he had to worry about Wells, 28, a Scotsman. "I knew from the semifinals of the 100 that he was two meters faster...
...more practical reasons. He was a lighting technician. He would not only be able to watch the track and field events but also check out his fellow technicians' artistry at the Bolshoi Theater. "If I had to choose between a visit backstage at the Bolshoi and watching Pietro Mennea, the Italian sprinter, run the 100 meters, I'd go crazy," he said. "I guess I'd watch Pietro. I'd give up any other track event for the Bolshoi, but not the 100 meters." The other priority on his list was to take a look...