IOC Members Aren’t Delighted by $200-Million Gift to Turner

ATLANTA —  Open not quite 72 hours, Centennial Olympic Stadium already has a cliche attached to it.

“It’s great for baseball, but . . . “

Implied is that it is not as great for the ambience of track and field--even if the track itself is first rate. That is true. But all that proves is that the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, which contributed all but about $30 million to the construction of the $232 million stadium, had its priorities intact.

Knowing the vast difference in fan appreciation in Atlanta for the two sports, no one who does not have the Olympic rings tattooed on his behind would believe that it is more important to build a state-of-the-art track stadium over a state-of-the-art baseball stadium.

Still, some International Olympic Committee members here this week for the final coordination commission meeting with the organizers complain that ACOG is not leaving behind a legacy for track and field. Privately, they also are agitated that the Olympic movement is providing Atlanta Braves’ owner Ted Turner, whom some see as a rival because of his Goodwill Games, a $200-million gift. His team moves into the stadium at the start of next season.

But those IOC members do not recognize that Atlanta has never been particularly interested in track and field and, with the exception of a 10-day period during this summer’s Olympics, probably never will be. With more than 40,000 tickets given away, the official attendance for the Atlanta Grand Prix in the stadium’s inaugural event Saturday was 43,328.

The IOC should be satisfied that the stadium will continue to serve a sport, and an Olympic one at that.

FACTOID

Spectators from a record 185 of the 197 countries active in the Olympic movement have bought tickets to this summer’s Games.

NEWSMAKER

Major university swimming programs were all throwing down their best bids--USC, Stanford, SMU. But freestyle star Cristina Teuscher, 18, decided to go the non-scholarship route to the Ivy League. She will attend Columbia, not far from her hometown in New Rochelle, N.Y.

Naturally, many in the swimming community were surprised.

Said one swimmer, “She’s going there for altitude training?”

No, Teuscher is not bound for South America. That’s Colombia.

Teuscher decided that she wanted to leave neither her coach, John Collins, nor the area.

“I’m basically a homebody,” she said.

Teuscher has been the top American woman in the 200-meter freestyle for the last two years. She has qualified for four events in the Olympics--the 200 and 400 freestyles as well as the 400 and 800 freestyle relays. In 1994, Teuscher won the silver medal in the 400 freestyle at the World Championships.

Though home will be near this fall, Teuscher knows there are limits on how often she is allowed to head home with her laundry.

“They told me at school, ‘You’re not going to be able to go home every time you want,’ ” she said, laughing.

LAUREL WREATH

Wolfgang Puck’s Spago restaurant in Hollywood is dispatching two chefs to the Games to prepare meals for the U.S. cycling team.

THORN WREATH

Weightlifters are having difficulty getting the message that the sport’s officials no longer will tolerate drugs. After word spread that the new, more powerful testing equipment that will be used in Atlanta would be tried out in weightlifting European championships in Norway, several reigning champions withdrew. Winning totals were down an average of 10 to 15 kilograms.

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Olympic Scene Notes

Most of the top gymnasts in last weekend’s U.S. Classic in Colorado Springs, Colo., such as national champion Dominique Moceanu, dropped out after the compulsories. She finished 19th. Others, such as two-time world champion Shannon Miller, did not even complete the compulsories. She finished 27th. Jennie Thompson won. . . . North Korea is hoping to receive a wild-card entry into the Olympics for gymnast Gil Su Pae, the world champion in the pommel horse. North Koreans have no automatic entrants in gymnastics because they did not compete in the qualifying last year.

World champion shot-putter John Godina came down with food poisoning while in Atlanta on Friday night. He spent three hours in the hospital with an IV attached to his arm. Still, he competed Saturday in the Olympic Stadium and won. . . . Stunned by the heat and humidity in Atlanta, Algerian miler Noureddine Morceli said he is moving his training headquarters from New Mexico to Florida to get ready for the Olympics.

U.S. heptathlete Gea Johnson, allowed to compete because of a temporary restraining order while she fights her four-year drug ban, entered three events Saturday at Cal State LA. She competed earlier this spring at Mt. SAC. The International Amateur Athletic Federation insists it will suspend anyone who competes against her under its contamination rule, but no one takes that threat seriously.

Sparing Olympic organizers an embarrassing airing of problems at the new stadium close to the Olympics, a Fulton County Superior Court judge said Monday he wouldn’t consider a trial on alleged design negligence until next year. Attorneys for the stadium designers, who sued the Olympic organizers for unpaid overtime, wanted the trial to start before the Games begin. That suit prompted a countersuit by the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, accusing the design team of shoddy work that led to a fatal construction accident and millions of dollars in repairs.

Germany’s Willi Daume, a former International Olympic Committee vice president, died Monday, four days short of his 83rd birthday. West Germany’s boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow is believed to have cost him a chance to become International Olympic Committee president that year. Even though he used his position as national Olympic committee chairman to oppose the boycott, the government prevailed. Spain’s Juan Antonio Samaranch was elected instead and still serves.

Times staff writer Lisa Dillman contributed to this report.

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This Week

* Today-Wednesday--First of two U.S. cycling time trials for men and women, Martinsburg, W. Va.

* Wednesday-Sunday--U.S. Open water polo, Nashville, Tenn.

* Thursday--U.S. vs. Germany boxing, New Orleans.

* Thursday--Women’s cycling road race trials, Wheeling, W. Va.

* Friday-Sunday--Grand Challenge swimming meet, Irvine.

* Saturday--U.S. men’s under-23 soccer team vs. Ireland, Decatur, Ga.

* Sunday--Prefontaine Classic track and field, Eugene, Ore.; Second men’s and women’s cycling road race trials, Pittsburgh.