WORLD SPORTS SCENE RANDY HARVEY : In Some Ways, It’s a Ringing Endorsement

“The Olympic Revolution,” a book authored by London Times sports editor David Miller about the International Olympic Committee under President Juan Antonio Samaranch of Spain, will be released this week in England.

It trails by only a few weeks the publication of the controversial “The Lords of the Rings,” the subject of a libel suit by the IOC.

One suspects that the IOC does not find “The Olympic Revolution” as revolting. Present at a ceremony to launch the book last week at London was Samaranch.

Michael Johnson, No. 1 in the world in the 200 and the 400 in 1990 and ‘91, is expected to announce today which event he will run in the Olympic trials, which begin Friday at New Orleans. Speculation is that the former Baylor sprinter will choose the 200.

Mike Powell, long jump world record-holder, said reports that he is concerned about a hamstring injury are exaggerated. But he did have to pay a visit to a hospital near his Alta Loma home last week because of food poisoning.

In one of track and field’s most heated rivalries, hurdler Renaldo Nehemiah beat Greg Foster 28 times in 34 races before turning to pro football in 1982. But since returning to the track, Nehemiah has had little success against three-time world champion Foster.

“The feud was real,” Nehemiah told the Washington Post, “but now we’re friends. I believe in my heart we’re friends because he’s beating me all the time.”

Construction of a bridge between German track and field athletes is expected to begin this week, when one of the East’s best, long jumper Heike Drechsler, is favored to win the Harbiger Trophy as the country’s best in the sport.

Other former East Germans are upset about the treatment three of them--Katrin Krabbe, Grit Breuer and Silke Moeller--have received from the West-dominated track and field federation regarding the alleged manipulation of a drug test. But not Drechsler. She said last week that she is convinced the three are guilty and should not be allowed to compete at Barcelona.

Soccer officials are frustrated that there has been so little offense in the European Championships. In no game through Sunday had more than two goals been scored.

French Coach Michel Platini said before his team tied Sweden, 1-1, in the opener that he hoped the play would be more exciting than in the 1990 World Cup at Italy. But his focus clearly was on the bottom line. “This is not figure skating, where they hand out points on style,” he said. “You have to win.”

Or at least tie. Four of the first six games ended without a winner.

Franz Beckenbauer told a London-based newspaper, The European, that France will win the tournament, but he told World Soccer magazine that the winner will be Germany. The Germans must read World Soccer because they are the only team to book rooms in Gothenburg for the June 26 final.

How important are the European imports to the U.S. national soccer team? With them, the United States beat Ireland and Portugal, and tied Italy. Without them Saturday at Orlando, unheralded Australia beat the United States, 1-0. The game was interrupted for 17 minutes in the second half because of a thunderstorm.

The 52 journalists who followed the Italian national team to the U.S. Cup were equally complimentary of the United States’ efforts and derisive of their own team’s lack of it in the surprise 1-1 tie nine days ago at Chicago.

“The Rediscovery of America,” was the headline in Corriere dello Sport. La Gazetta dello Sport said: “We Were Presumptuous.”

U.S. Soccer is attempting to organize a tournament for late July in Los Angeles featuring the United States, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. . . . Timo Liekoski, a former NASL and MSL coach, has been named as an assistant to U.S. national Coach Bora Milutinovic.

Bela Karolyi, who always seems to be either campaigning for or resigning from the job as U.S. women’s gymnastics coach, says he will not accept the position for the Olympics because of the politics that are certain to be involved in the selection of the team.

From among the eight finalists chosen after the trials over the weekend at Baltimore, six plus an alternate will be chosen during a training camp next month at Tampa, Fla., to go to Barcelona.

“Who is going to work that out without raising the biggest hell?” Karolyi said. “Not for me.”

Karolyi, coach of three of the eight gymnasts who will be at Tampa, is upset because one of them, world champion Kim Zmeskal, lost at the trials to Shannon Miller. Karolyi believed Zmeskal was at a disadvantage because her final score included her results from the U.S. championships and the trials, while Miller’s score came solely from the trials. She missed the U.S. championships with an injury.

“It’s outrageous, it’s unethical, it’s unpatriotic,” he said. “You get an advantage in this country if you are running away from the competition.”

Come on, Bela, tell us what you really think.

Figure skating gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi, who is expected to announce perhaps as soon as today whether she will continue her competitive career through the 1994 Winter Olympics, was third in a woman-of-the-year survey conducted among 2,500 kindergarten through 12th-grade girls by the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools. She finished behind Mom and Barbara Bush and ahead of Mother Theresa, Anita Hill, Jodie Foster and Madonna.

Notes

The U.S. Olympic men’s basketball players, the so-called “Dream Team,” gather next Monday for a training camp at San Diego. Meantime, European teams begin their Olympic qualifying tournament in Spain Friday. The most interesting first-round game matches the Commonwealth of Independent States against one of the former Soviet republics, Lithuania, on June 26.

Bud Greenspan’s “Triumph and Tragedy,” a documentary about the 1972 Summer Olympics at Munich, will air next Saturday on KNBC-TV. . . . The U.S. Olympic diving trials are scheduled for Wednesday through Sunday at Indianapolis. It will be the first time since 1976 that Greg Louganis is not entered.

If, as expected, LeRoy Walker is elected U.S. Olympic Committee president in October, he said he will resign his position as a vice president of Atlanta’s organizing committee for the 1996 Olympics to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.