Jones Has a Triple on Her Mind

She didn’t win her first national title until seven weeks ago and her only experience on the European track and field tour came in a three-meet stint last month.

Yet 21-year-old Marion Jones will be shooting for a unique triple when the World Championships begin today in Athens.

Jones, who won an unprecedented nine state titles during her high school career at Rio Mesa (1990-91) and Thousand Oaks (92-93), will try to become the first woman to win the 100 meters and long jump and run a leg on the winning 400 relay team in the World Championships.

Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis established themselves as Olympic legends by winning the 100, 200 and long jump and running legs on the victorious 400 relay teams in the 1936 and ’84 Games, but no woman has ever won gold medals in the 100, long jump and 400 relay in the same Olympics or World Championships.

“I didn’t know that,” Jones’ Coach Trevor Graham said from Athens on Friday. “We knew that no woman had ever won the 100, 200 and long jump like Owens or Lewis, but we thought there had been at least one who had won the 100 and the long jump. I don’t think I’ll tell her about that until after she’s done.”

If Jones, a recent graduate of North Carolina, does pull off the historic triple, she will earn between $133,333 and $140,00.

That’s because prize money will be awarded to athletes for the first time in the World Championships this year.

The individual winners of the 1995 World Championships were each given a Mercedes Benz for their efforts, but this is the first time that the top three finishers in each event will be paid.

The breakdown for individual medalists is $60,000 for first, $30,000 for second and $20,000 for third. The pay scale for relay teams--which can number between four and six athletes--is $80,000 for first, $40,000 for second and $30,000 for third.

Anyone breaking a world record will collect an additional $100,000.

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The World Championships could be the last meet of the season in which Jones will compete in either the 100 or the long jump because she’ll focus on the 200 in the major European meets after Athens.

“This will be her last long jump competition of the season,” Graham said. “And I don’t think she’ll run in any more 100s unless they’re going to have one of those in the Grand Prix final.”

Jones has only run one 200 this season, but it was a doozy as she clocked a yearly world-leading mark of 22.16 in Stockholm on July 7.

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It has been six years since Kenny Harrison of Mission Hills won the World Championships in the men’s triple jump in Tokyo, but the 1996 Olympic champion and American record-holder appears to be peaking at the right time.

After winning the U.S. trials with a mediocre--for him--jump of 55-8 1/4, Harrison bounded 56-7 1/2, 57-2 and 57-5 1/2 in a series of European meets in late June and early July.

His 57-5 1/2 effort came in the Bislett Games in Oslo on July 4 and gave him his second consecutive victory over Olympic bronze medalist Yoelbi Quesada of Cuba.

“I got a later start on the season this year than last,” Harrison said. “But I feel like I’m coming around. I feel like I’m ready to jump a personal best [at the Worlds] if the conditions are right.”

A personal best would probably give Harrison the gold medal because he ranks second on the all-time world performer list at 59-4 1/4.

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Mark Crear of Valencia is ranked sixth on the yearly world list in the men’s 110 high hurdles with a time of 13.21, but if you ask him, his season best is 13.18.

Crear ran that time in winning the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Ore., on May 25, but Track & Field News refused to recognize the mark when TV replays clearly showed that Crear had half his torso across the starting line before his opponents even moved.

Crear told Track & Field News after the meet that he’d “caught a flyer,” but he has since changed his mind, at least somewhat.

“They said it was a false start, but I won the race,” said the 1996 Olympic silver medalist.

If you count the results of the Prefontaine meet, Crear has a 2-2-1 record against defending World and Olympic champion Allen Johnson this season. He admits, however, that American record-holder Johnson deserves to be favored in Athens.

“He’s obviously the man to beat,” Crear said. “But you’ve got a lot of other individuals running well right now.”

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Adam Setliff is the second Valencia resident who will be competing in the World Championships.

Setliff, 12th in the discus in the 1996 Olympics, moved from Houston to Valencia last September to pursue a career in the creative arts.

He has already played Mac Wilkins, the 1976 Olympic discus champion, in an upcoming Warner Bros. film called “Without Limits.”

The film, expected to be released next year, is about distance runner Steve Prefontaine, who held every American record from 3,000 to 10,000 meters when he died in an auto accident in 1975.

“It was a lot of fun,” Setliff said of playing Wilkins, who is also his friend. “Mac can be kind of a smart aleck and so can I so it wasn’t that hard to do.”

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Regina Jacobs of Oakland, a 1981 graduate of what is now Campbell Hall High, won her fourth consecutive national title--and her sixth overall--in the women’s 1,500 in June, but she is still looking for her first medal in either the Olympics or the outdoor World Championships.

Jacobs won the 1995 World indoor title, but she has never advanced to the final of the 1,500 in the World outdoor meet.

She placed 10th in last year’s Olympic Games in Atlanta.

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Marion Jones could run and jump into the world spotlight. C4