Powell Gets Off a Big Throw (217-3) for Silver : Then 40-Year-Old Athlete Gets Off a Few Lines While Announcing Retirement

ROME — John Powell said Friday, in announcing his retirement, that he’s a 40-year-old discus thrower with arthritis all over his body.

The one thing for sure about that announcement is that Powell is 40. That’s a fact. Everything else was said with Powell’s tongue firmly planted in his cheek.

Powell, the put-on artist, has conned the world again. He got the silver medal in the discus Friday night at track and field’s World Championships while passing on his last three throws in the final.

That’s right. With the world’s best discus throwers, all considerably younger than the veteran from Cupertino, Calif., straining to finish among the top three, Powell just waited them all out.

He knew he couldn’t surpass the winning throw of 225 feet 6 inches by East Germany’s Jurgen Schult, who is also the world record-holder at 243 feet. But Powell figured that he could hang on to get a bronze medal, at least. He wound up doing better than that.

Powell, who talks like a poker-faced comedian, originally said that he didn’t take more than three throws because of his painful arthritis.

Then, he leveled. If Powell ever levels.

“After I threw 66.22 (meters, which converts to 217-3) on my first throw, I could only come back with throws of 60 and 61,” he said. “I knew that was the only thing this body could produce today. Realistically, it was all she wrote.”

Cuba’s Luis Delis came close to catching Powell when he got off a throw of 66.02 meters, 216-7, on his last attempt.

You have to stay with Powell to get a straight answer from him. He said after he had won the discus in the U.S.-Mobil outdoor championships last June in San Jose that he didn’t intend to compete in Rome.

But he was here. And it’s a good bet that he’ll be in Seoul, South Korea, in 1988, for the Olympic Games.

Powell reasons that if Al Oerter, a four-time Olympic discus champion, can compete into his 50s, there’s no reason he can’t.

“I just changed my diet a few years ago, and throwing the discus keeps you physically fit,” said the 6-foot 2-inch, 243-pound veteran. “I also do a little running and lifting.”

Powell, who once held the world record at 233-9, was a bronze medalist in the 1976 and 1984 Olympics. He also finished fourth in the 1972 Games and made the Olympic team in 1980, the year of the American boycott of the Moscow Games.

Powell was interviewed on television by NBC’s Dwight Stones, the former world record-holder in the high jump. Stones is never at a loss for words, but Powell kept him off balance.

When asked when he intends to retire, Powell said, “I just want to hang in until I get a soft job like yours.”

Then Powell was veering in another direction, telling of a hotel here that guarantees him all the pasta he can eat.

“They give you four extra meals, but I get five,” Powell said without batting an eye.

The term wily veteran is a sports cliche, but it applies to Powell.

He said that Olympic Stadium wasn’t suited to discus throwers because there wasn’t sufficient wind. He also prefers a gritty or slow surface in the discus ring. That wasn’t possible after an early evening rain, so Powell changed from discus shoes to standard jogging shoes for better footing.

Powell became the oldest medalist in the World Championships, surpassing Romania’s Maricica Puica, 37, who had previously won a silver medal in the women’s 3,000 meters.

Powell wears a T-shirt that says, “John Powell & Associates.”

It isn’t clear, however, who the associates are and what Powell does for a living other than throw the discus, which he has been doing since he was a teen-ager at Mira Loma High School in Sacramento in the ‘60s.

It’s believed, though, that this former police officer sells instructional video tapes on track and field events. He’s also a part-time coach at Stanford.

Powell and Mac Wilkins, a former world record-holder and the 1976 gold medalist in the Olympics, have been needling competitors for years.

Wilkins is in semi-retirement, just throwing in a few selected meets. Powell would like him to come out again because his presence would motivate him.

“Mac has the right mental approach to the competition,” Powell said. “I’d like to see him back.”

When Wilkins reads that his old adversary has won a silver medal at 40, he might be motivated to have some fun again.