One More Spin O’Brien Will Attempt To Turn Back Clock At U.S. Trials
He will board an airplane from here to there, wedge a bag into the overhead and get the look.
Not the instant-recognition-can-I-have-my-picture-taken-with-you look. Not even the didn’t-you-used-to-be-Dan-O’Brien look. But the I-know-you-from-somewhere-help-me-out-pal look.
The problem with celebrity today is that there is far too much of it. Darva Conger, John Rocker, Kato Kaelin and Marshall Mathers are all, technically, celebrities, often with a much longer shelf life than actual human beings with actual achievements to their credit.
Meanwhile, what put Dan O’Brien on a cereal box four years ago has grown, as celebrity currency, about as stale as the flakes inside it. So when someone eyeballs him on an airplane with that look of vague recognition and he nudges things along with a hint by saying, “Dan …” the comeback more often than not is: “Oh, yeah - Dan and Dave.”
“People always remember Dan and Dave,” he says with a laugh.
Nothing sardonic in that laugh. O’Brien enjoys life’s ironies as much as the next guy. Still, it is a sign of the times that he is remembered as much or more for a 1992 ad campaign which, in the end, came to nothing than for the Olympic decathlon gold medal he won in 1996 without a slogan.
In America, it’s not just “What have you done for us lately?” Apparently it’s “What have you sold us lately?”
These are the things O’Brien tries hard not to think about these days.
He is, with a combination of anxious urgency and measured determination, readying himself for another run at a gold medal. Age - he is 34 now - competitive rust and an exceptional new rival who has confiscated O’Brien’s world record all stand in his way. Knee surgery and a fitful recovery have put him behind schedule in training with the U.S. Olympic Trials just days away, and so there is no time to be stewing about endorsements and exposure.
“This is the time when you pretend your future doesn’t matter,” he said, an ice bag strapped to the repaired knee after a workout at Washington State University’s Mooberry Track.
“What matters is doing the best you can, winning the gold - and you’d do it for free. And it’s all about today.”
The track and field trials open an eight-day run in Sacramento, Calif., on Friday, with the decathlon on July 20 and 21. As is U.S. custom, the top three finishers make the team for Sydney in September, though if O’Brien were to hook this fish with a third-place finish, you almost get the feeling he’d throw it back.
“I want to win,” he said. “Absolutely. I’ve got a seven or eight-year win streak going. I don’t think it’s going to take a huge score to win, but there’s a lot of pride involved.”
It’s true. O’Brien has not lost a decathlon since dropping out of an invitational in Stockholm in July 1992 - not long after his horror-story failure to make that year’s Olympic team. There are 11 decathlons in his streak, but only one - the Goodwill Games in 1998 - in the four years since his vindication in Atlanta.
He is the defending Olympic champion, and yet at the same time a decidedly unproven commodity.
Even, somewhat, to himself.
“I’ve had feelings of, `Am I going to be able to do this?”’ O’Brien admitted. “The strength of my game has always been confidence. I’ve always been so confident in my preparation and abilities that even when I wasn’t prepared, I could go out and beat guys.
“Now it’s a question of is this within me? Am I going to be able to physically do this? I want to do it, but every time you have a setback, it shakes your confidence.”
And, yes, some have questioned O’Brien’s want-to in this encore.
His victory in Atlanta was the culmination of a four-year Requital Tour, as it were - making up for the opportunity missed in 1992 when he no-heighted in the pole vault at the trials. Spent from that quest, he virtually shut down in 1997 - separating from long-time coach Mike Keller, moving to Arizona, competing in a hurdles race here or a pole vault there before sitting out the World Championships to heal a nagging stress fracture.
Renewed, he readied himself for Goodwill in 1998 and kept his streak alive with a score of 8,755 points - not in his top five, but well ahead of the rest of the world’s best, including the new flavor of the month, Tomas Dvorak of the Czech Republic.
“But everybody kind of went through the motions at Goodwill,” O’Brien said.
And when he tried to do more than go through the motions the following year, his body betrayed him. In July, he underwent surgery - the first he’s ever had - to relieve patellar tendinitis in his left knee, and so lengthy was the recovery process that he has been training hard only since March.
“So now there’s some drama involved,” he said.
In the meantime, Dvorak - a looming presence since winning the bronze in Atlanta - snatched the world record last year with an 8,994 score, just missing the coveted 9,000 mark O’Brien always considered to be his province alone.
As if to prove it wasn’t a fluke, Dvorak recently backed it up with an 8,900 score in Switzerland. He now owns two scores better than O’Brien’s 8,891 best from 1992.
And now O’Brien is looking at “the biggest showdown ever” if he can make the Olympic team.
“You’re talking the two best decathletes in history,” he said. “In Atlanta, it was pretty much mine to win or lose. This is different. This guy is good - better than me at the moment.
“I’m in conflict with it. This is what I want - I relish the challenge - but, man, I’m feeling the pressure, too.”
But at the moment, the pressure should be confined to simply making the team - and other than some doubts about how his knee might hold up, O’Brien feels none.
For the fact is, the decathlon has stagnated in the United States without O’Brien’s dominating presence at the top. Chris Huffins, regarded as O’Brien’s heir apparent since a 10th-place finish it Atlanta, was fourth in the world last year but has still not topped 8,700 points. Tom Pappas was the only other American ranked in the top 10 in 1999.
“Nobody here is going to bounce me out if I score 8,600,” O’Brien said. “There are not a lot of guys here in the U.S. to really make me think I’m going to have my work cut out for me.
“I planned on coming back this year before (Dvorak) broke my world record. Because I still think I can do better. I had a good ‘96 and I’ve won some world championships, but I thought my ‘96 performance was very average, frankly. Had I done a lot of things better, I probably wouldn’t still be doing this today.
“It’s like if Tiger Woods was playing par golf and still winning - he wouldn’t complain about it, but he’d know it wasn’t his best.”
The knee, however, has complicated matters. O’Brien has complained of three major setbacks in rehabilitation since the surgery - the latest in May, which required cortisone to check the inflammation. He conceded he hasn’t yet “really hammered” a high jump for fear of aggravating the injury, and it seemed to bother him in a long jump effort last weekend at Stanford.
He will have two months to strengthen it should he make the team - but he’s going to have to put it through a severe test to do so.
It’s a chore getting old. Even in Atlanta, O’Brien was the second oldest man in history to win decathlon gold - by just 89 days. No one over the age of 33 has ever finished higher than 10th.
And, truth be told, he’s not just back for the challenge. Simply put, being a decathlete is still the best way for him to make a living. Though some endorsement and employment opportunities came his way in the wake of Atlanta, it was not the windfall the World’s Greatest Athlete might have expected. He even lost one of his major patrons, Nike.
“For some reason, you think you’re going to wake up the next day and be a different person, but things didn’t change overnight,” he said.
“Things were different in 1996. In 1976, Bruce Jenner wins the gold and rides off into the Hollywood sunset. He was the star of those Games. But there were too many stars that came out of ‘96, and how does Madison Avenue or Hollywood or whoever decide who does what?
“Opportunities were not abundant. There was nobody knocking on my door with a movie part or a million dollar broadcasting job. I did my share of things, but you have to make your own opportunities now.”
He has kicked this around with other members of the Comebackers Club. He and his fiance, Leilani Sang, are good friends of gold medal swimmer Amy Van Dyken, who is in the same mode. Ditto for gymnast Dominique Moceanu.
Hot stuff in Atlanta, longer shots for Sydney.
“They’re both coming off surgeries, trying to repeat as Olympic champions against people out there who are better right now,” he said. “You couldn’t ask for more of a challenge.
“I’ve got the hunger back. Absolutely.”
This sidebar appeared with the story: Olympic hopefuls
Besides Moscow, Idaho, resident Dan O’Brien, a number of other area athletes will be trying to make the U.S. Olympic track and field team at the trials beginning Friday in Sacramento. They include:
Dominique Arnold, former NCAA champ from Washington State, whose best of 13.11 seconds is fourth among Americans in the men’s 110-meter high hurdles.
Alishia Booterbaugh, recent WSU graduate, who has a best of 2:04.81 in the women’s 800.
Eastern Washington’s Ryan Cole, qualified in the javelin off a best of 229 feet, 5 inches, from 1999.
Oscar Duncan, the former Idaho javelin ace who made the U.S. team to the World Championships last year and has a 243-8 best, No. 9 in the U.S. this season.
Former Central Valley High School state champion Annette Peters of Eugene, Ore., coming off a year’s hiatus but still one of the country’s top female distance runners. Her 32:03.06 seasonal best at 10,000 meters is fourth in the U.S.
Randi Smith, WSU junior and recent runner-up in the U.S. Junior Championships, has run 57.07 in the 400 hurdles.
Missy Vanek, a junior at Cal from Priest River, Idaho, who was Pac-10 champion in the heptathlon and third in the NCAA meet with a 5,614-point best.
Ian Waltz, the Post Falls High and WSU grad who has thrown 198-7 this year but has a 211-5 best dating back two seasons in the discus.
Arend Watkins, a two-time All-American at WSU and 1999 Pac-10 champion in the 110-meter high hurdles. A pulled hamstring kept Watkins out of the Pac-10 championships earlier this year.
Other area athletes who have earned qualifying marks but have not been confirmed as entries are two WSU underclassmen - discus thrower Mandy Borschowa and heptathlete Ellannee Richardson, who sat out this collegiate season with an injury.
-John Blanchette