O’Brien Adds To His Stature Under Dreadful Conditions

Nearing the stroke of midnight Thursday, with the USA/Mobil national championships threatening to become the first three-day decathlon, members of the media outnumbered spectators by an easy 2-to-1.

Awful weather had chased most of the fans, and apparently few felt compelled to witness Dan O’Brien negotiate the 1,500 meters.

So, some past-deadline East Coast writers established a pool to enliven the event: Fork over a buck and predict O’Brien’s time.

Most realized that O’Brien’s relationship to the 1,500 is about the same as a fish’s to roller skating.

Generally, after a lap or so, it looks as if someone had seriously loosened his lugnuts.

And when the Moscow, Idaho, resident slipped to the back of the pack in the second lap, one writer asked, “Did anybody pick DNF (did not finish)?”

Funny thing happened, though. O’Brien picked up the pace and finished with a full-bore sprint.

Please remember that his third straight national title had long been assured. His berth on the U.S. team for the World Championships was guaranteed. And the distractions and frustrations of two draining days in the worst possible conditions had presented him a handy excuse to fold.

He didn’t use it.

O’Brien’s time was an unspectacular 5:01.02 - not worth stopping the presses - but there was no skulking across the finish line at a trot.

“The 1,500 had its bright points,” said Rick Sloan, one of O’Brien’s coaches. “He got off with the pack in the first part of it instead of just settling to the back, he came back in the last 300 and picked it up and sprinted hard to the line.”

The result was an 8,682 total - the best score ever under arctic conditions.

It was short of his world record of 8,891, but only one other American, Dave Johnson, has been able to score more than that. And that was a windy 8,727 three years ago.

With temperatures in the low 50s - the second-coldest June 15 in the last 117 years - accompanied by rain and winds strong enough to flatten the tent in the interview area, this competition carried the mark of disaster.

Sixteen athletes came into it with 8,000-plus point totals, but only seven were able to crack that plateau Wednesday and Thursday because of the conditions.

The folks at Visa - bankrollers of the USA decathlon team - vowed to print up T-shirts reading “I survived Sacramento.”

But O’Brien did more than survive; he flourished. And it might mark a significant point in the evolution of the athlete from gifted wunderkind to mature competitor.

“He certainly brought his game face; I don’t think I’ve ever seen Dan compete as well as he did the last two days,” said Frank Zarnowski, author of “The Decathlon” and regarded as the event’s walking encyclopedia. “He was more focused than I’ve seen him before. It was amazing, under those conditions, that even up until the last hour of the pole vault, we were still looking at a possible world record from him.”

O’Brien, at a Visa gathering Friday morning, was fairly unmoved by the effort. “I’ve been in so many big meets, now, it’s not that big a deal,” he said. “What it was, was another learning experience for me. It proved to me that under any circumstances, I can score high, and that’s good to know.”

With 29 candles on the next birthday cake, O’Brien should be near his peak. And he insists that he is still on the upward curve competitively.

“I feel stronger and I feel faster than ever before,” O’Brien said. “When that starts to drop off, I’ll know it and I’ll worry about it then, but it’s not.”

Mike Keller, his other coach, conceded that he worries about that fella with the long, gray beard and the scythe running behind O’Brien.

“Father Time is chasing us,” Keller said. “Depending on when he decides to retire, he could have only one more decathlon this year and maybe just two next year (the Trials and the Olympics).

“And it’s a thin edge you walk on, never knowing what can happen and how many chances you’ll get,” Keller said. “I’ve asked him, ‘If it was taken away from you now, would you be happy with what you’ve scored?’ and I really don’t think he would be.”

The case of nerves he battles the day before competition has left O’Brien wondering, occasionally, “how many times can I put up with this?”

Those are concerns for another time, though. Later, when he’s not so easily able to outdistance Father Time, to subdue Mother Nature, and simply outclass his decathlete brethren.

O’Brien and his coaches and attendants left the stadium Wednesday night in a blocklong limousine that Keller had somehow finagled.

Like some athletic Colonel Parker, Sloan powered down a tinted window and dryly remarked: “Elvis has left the building.”

Not a bad line.

Particularly considering that, at least for now, as far as the decathlon is concerned, O’Brien is still The King.

, DataTimes