International Meet to Be Held June 8; Goal Is to Save the Track at Coliseum

In the appropriate setting--the peristyle end of the Coliseum--it was announced Tuesday that an international track meet will be held at the stadium June 8. It is hoped that a successful meet will save the track, which is in danger of removal if the football seating area is expanded.

Mayor Tom Bradley was present to lend his suppport along with such world-class athletes as Edwin Moses, Dwight Stones and Mike Tully, who’ll compete in the meet.

“It has been said that if it doesn’t draw well, it will be one more nail in the coffin for this track,” Stones said. “I hope that isn’t the case, because being the only facility in the world to ever host two Olympic track and field competitions, it would be a real shame to have a track so outstanding eliminated.”

H.D. Thoreau, co-commissioner of track and field for the 1984 Olympics, is promoting the international meet.

Thoreau said he is committed to an elite field, including some athletes from Eastern Bloc countries who didn’t compete in the Olympics here because of the Soviet Union-led boycott.

Athletes who have indicated that they’ll compete, many of whom were Olympic gold medalists in 1984, include:

Carl Lewis, Calvin Smith, Brazil’s Joaquim Cruz, Johnny Gray, Steve Scott, Ireland’s Eamonn Coghlan, Roger Kingdom, Greg Foster, France’s Pierre Quinon and Thierry Vigneron, West Germany’s Dietmar Mogenburg and Carlo Thranhardt, Sweden’s Patrik Sjoberg, Al Joyner, Mike Conley, Dave Laut, Czechoslovakia’s Jarmila Kratochvilova, Valerie Brisco-Hooks, Mary Decker Slaney, Ruth Wysocki, Romania’s Doina Melinte and Maricica Puica, Kim Gallagher, Chandra Cheeseborough, Florence Griffin, Carol Lewis and Jackie Joyner.

Atlantic Richfield Co. is the sponsor of the meet.