Kids Inspire Devers’ Return to 100-Meter Hurdles

Gail Devers believes she was fated to compete in the Home Depot Track and Field Invitational in Carson.

Devers, a UCLA alumna and 100-meter Olympic gold medalist in 1992 and ‘96, oversees a program called FORCE, or Focus On Respect, Commitment and Excellence, which helps youngsters build self-esteem and plan productive futures. She wanted to give them a present when their five-week course ended in May, and was surprised when they said they wanted to watch her compete in the 100-meter hurdles, in which she has won three world titles but has missed the Olympic podium.

A phone call to Bruce Tenen, elite-athlete coordinator of the Home Depot meet, made everything fit. The kids from 11 Club Force centers in the Los Angeles area will cheer for her May 22 in Carson and will run in their own races afterward. Devers will open her outdoor season in the hurdles and just might be persuaded to run the 100-meter dash.

“I’m running for them,” Devers said of the kids. “Every race that I’ve had this year, I’ve dedicated to someone. And it means a lot to me to do something for someone else and run with my heart....

“The opportunity, the destiny, all of that being there when it’s supposed to be, is going to make this meet something that’s going to be fantastic, not just for me but for these kids, and it’s going to make a difference in their lives.”

Devers, 37 and aiming for her fifth Olympics, calls herself “the grandma of the sport.” She said she’d competed indoors only to get in some speed work for the outdoor season and still had work to do after winning the 60-meter world indoor title and finishing second in the 60-meter hurdles earlier this month in Budapest, Hungary.

Had she won both races, “I probably would have said ‘I’m done,’ ” she said.

“I don’t like to run. People, I guess, think I’m lying when I say that but I never wanted to run. I always wanted to be a teacher. As I look at it, I am a teacher. My classroom is humongous. Had I done it my way, I would have had 30 kids in a class. But this way, I have an opportunity to open doors for so many people, and that’s what it’s about, helping people.”

She said her motivation went beyond adding another gold medal to her sprint medals and relay medal.

“To say that I’ve done it for someone, or I’ve inspired someone by doing it, that means more to me right now,” she said.

The Home Depot Invitational will be the first of four USA Track and Field Golden Spike tour events. Last year’s inaugural meet drew a capacity crowd of 10,094, and seating has been increased to 12,000.

Maurice Greene, Stacy Dragila and world 400-meter champion Jerome Young will also compete, but Ana Guevara of Mexico will not defend her 400-meter title because she committed to run in the Banamex meet in Mexico City the same day.

On Track in Carson

An ambitious cycling program will begin Saturday at the Home Depot Center with a criterium, a multi-lap race that’s usually contested on a course less than a mile long and emphasizes sprinting ability and bike control.

It will take place on the grounds of the training center with different categories for age groups and skill levels.

It’s the start of a buildup to June, when a new velodrome opens on site to replace the facility used during the 1984 Olympics. The new velodrome, with a 250-meter track built of Siberian pine, will be the only indoor velodrome in the U.S.

The U.S. junior cycling championships will be held in Carson from June 30 to July 3, and the world junior championships will be held from July 28 to Aug. 1. USA Cycling will move its Olympic development program and Olympic cyclists to Carson in October to train year-round on a track comparable to those in the rest of the world. A World Cup Classic race also will be held in mid-December and the 2005 world championships will be in Carson next March.

“It’s very tight. It’s got very steep corners. It’s a facility like none other in this country because it’s enclosed and it’s really a full-blown racing facility,” said Bill Peterson, managing director of the Home Depot Center.

“What we’re trying to do is create year-round opportunities and really bring the sport of track cycling more to the forefront. Everybody follows Lance [Armstrong] and the outdoor stuff and people are aware of that. Track cycling was originally developed for those road riders in Europe to have a place to train and compete in the wintertime.

“The races you see in a velodrome all mimic certain aspects of road races. And with the great base we have here of cyclists, we think there’s a great opportunity not only to showcase track racing but also develop a number of Olympic athletes over time.”

En Garde

The U.S. men’s epee fencing team clinched a berth at the Athens Games by finishing ninth at a World Cup epee competition last weekend in Vancouver, Canada. A U.S. men’s epee team didn’t qualify in 1992 or 2000. One did compete at Atlanta in 1996, but only because the U.S. was the host country.

Soren Thompson of San Diego was a member of the team at Vancouver and will be a member of the Athens squad. “It’s all very exciting, and I’m relieved that the year has gone well thus far,” he said in an e-mail. Also on the Vancouver squad was Cody Mattern of Tigard, Ore., who was seeded 57th but finished second in the individual event.

The U.S. women’s saber fencing team won gold at a World Cup event in Moscow last Monday. The team consisted of sisters Emily and Sada Jacobson of Dunwoody, Ga., as well as Mariel Zagunis of Beaverton, Ore., and Emma Baratta of Somerville, N.J. The women’s team defeated China for the first time and also defeated Russia.

Here and There

Courtney McCool of Kansas City won the women’s all-around title and Alexander Artemev of Lakewood, Colo., finished fifth in the men’s all-around competition in a gymnastics test event at the Athens Olympic venue this week. Mary Sanders, who has U.S. and Canadian citizenship but chose to represent the U.S., was ninth in the rhythmic competition and Jennifer Parilla of Lake Forest finished ninth in the preliminaries of the trampoline competition.

Although many Athens venues are unfinished, the rhythmic gymnastics venue is complete. Artistic gymnastics will take place in an existing arena.

Bob Colarossi, president of USA Gymnastics, attended the test competitions and got a quick tour of Athens.

“There’s a lot of construction going on everywhere,” he said. “Roads, buildings, hotels, everything. I think it will be ready.”

Kim Rhode, a two-time Olympic medalist from El Monte, won a spot on the women’s doubles trapshooting team at Athens.

The women’s World Hockey Championships start Tuesday in Halifax, Canada. The U.S. and Canada have met in each of the seven previous championship games, all won by Canada. The tournament was canceled last year because of a SARS outbreak in China, the host country.