,
It wa a term that she carried over from her
childhood in the project of Atlant , now modified to
her world of track and field. But even lacking her
u ual picturesque tyle, Torrence battled the p in and
pu hed hard around the curve becau e of the
dreamlike sen ation of getting clo er without trying.
"I just wanted to run apr onal be t but then I
thought I might medal," Torrence recalled. "So I
threw my head back, lost all form and got closer and
closer. I saw the podium every step of the way. "
Torrence surged past Ottey with just S meters to go
nd crossed the finish line in a season-best zz .. J6�just
"Gwen i the typ of p r on who love to prove
her If ron:' he aid. "If he thin h can't do
it he trie h rder. You h v to hold h r hand nd let
her be one tep in front. "
He 1 0 now th t orld-cla cornpeuuvene
ometimes pills off the tr ck. all r d crib hi
wife s "fearful competitor. " Im gine a rd game
between the two where Torrence i not doing well.
"She hate to lose," Waller aid." 0 I have to 10 e
even though I'm winning 0 v e can ke p playin . But
then he figures out I 10 t on purpo and get mad,
so we quit anyway. "
After the 1988 Olympic, Torren e and Waller, who
also ran track at the Univer ity of Ge rgia, tried
t ti fied, nd I'm )way 100 ing to g t
b tter," h id. "In the 1 t World Champion hip
I didn't now what I w doing. I forgot I wa even
in it. My go I i alw y to medal nd th n et
p ronal be t. "
Waller y he come home from race happy if
he' done well b t alw y ying he could do better.
"The day he beats me in r ce ill be the day he
win the Olympic gold medal," predicted Waller,
who e be t time i 10.09. The women' record i
10.49 et by Florence Griffith-Joyner.
"Next year, I hope he beats me. tt
•
Gwen Torrence (left) In front at the U.S. National at Randalls Island earlier this year.
behind Krabbe's gold-medal performance of 22.,09.
The finishing order of Krabbe, Torrence and Ottey
was exactly the same as the lOO-meters.
"I thought, 'Oh, Gwen, you were ghetto run­
ning,' " she reprimanded herself after the ra.ce.
" 'What happened to those high knees?' "
It was a perfectionist's critique of a performance by
someone who wasn't expected to medal at all, I et alone
win two silvers. Ottey hadn't lost a lOO-me ter race
since 1987 and she'd run a record seven sub 22.00 races
in the 200. But Torrence has been defying the odds
since she was born 26 years ago and' gave what her
mother called a certain look. "She knew I was going
to do something special with my life," Torrence said.
"And I knew I'd find a way out. tt
It was the projects she wanted to escape and track
was the vehicle she used. Her childhood friends
remember her as a skinny girl with a temper, who used
to run into the house for butter knives, only to be
stopped by her brother. There was a fire in Torrence
that didn't disappear with age.
"I wasn't bad; I just had to stand my ground, " said
Torrence, in her soft-spoken manner. "I was skinny,
so everyone was always picking on me. In the ghetto
you have to fight your way through. "
Her first memory of track wa "walking.some boy
down" during a seventh-grade field day. She was the
most valuable player on the ninth-grade basketball
team and when she won a scholarship to the only
scho�l that recruited her, the University of Georgia,
she became the first person in her family to go to
college. It changed. her. life; without run�ing she
pictures herself working 10 a beauty alon, With more
children and financial problems.
Instead Torrence �s the fastest sprinter in the
United St�tes, with �er ights on a econ� Olympic
appearance. In 198� at Seoul, Torrence finished fifth
in the lOO-meters and ixth in the 200. She ays she was
young then, running against veter ns and drugs,
which was frustrating for a person only 23 years old.
"She doesn't have a temper like when she was
unsuccessfully for a child, so she began training again.
But one afternoon while doing sit-ups with her best
friend, sprinter Michelle Finn, she noticed that her
stomach was getting bigger. A few weeks later she ran
the 4OO-meters in 54.00, well ot f her personal best of
51.1, and when she went to the doctor soon after to
have a cyst removed from her ovary, she found out she
was pregnant.
"I was in the best shape of my life but I knew I
wanted a ba, orrence said. "So I sat back and
watched Michelle take up the slack. Every time I'd see
a meet, I'd say, 'I'll be back.' tt
Manley Jr. was born on Nov .. 25. On Dec. 25,
Gwen Torrence woke and said she was going to
start running.
"She had th drive in her, a burning sensation she
had to get 0 and do-it," Waller said. "It was pan
of her upb nging."
-. The ad back, however, was not as easy for
Torrence as it was for someone' like Britain's Liz
MeColgan, who was running six days after she
delivered her daughter, Elish.
"I was like a child learning to run, "Torrence aid.
"My timing and stride patters were off. "
In 1988, Torrence had run the 100 in a wind-aided
10.78, but for the next two years she couldn't break
11 seconds. Finally, in June at the U. S. National
Championships in New York, Torrence finished ec­
ond behind Carlette Guidrey in 11.02, her best time
since 1988: She also won the 200 in 22!38, and' in
Augu t she ran a season ... best 10.96 at Lau anne.
Her ilent quest for a medal at the World Cham­
pionships began. She still was fini hing behind Ottey
in Grand Prix events, but she held firm to the belief
that anyone could be beaten and keyed on Ottey in the
qualifying rounds at Tokyo. Twice Torrence and Ottey
were in the ame qualifying heat and twice Ottey gave
her opponent a concerned glance around the 80-meter
mark.
"I was Just settling to let her win." Torrence aid.
Mi h el Jord n
Storm, over Jordan
':
By CURTIS MOLLOY
A torm wept into the Windy City and it w
no ea nal hin in weath r fronts.
It wa a torm over Jordan. Michael Jordan, king: �
of the NBA, parked outrage in the Chicago port
page when he declined to join the campaign of ,
President George Bush by refusing to attend the
recent White House reception for the Chicago
Bull .
Team rna te Horace Grant went public chastizing -. ,
Jordan for his failure to be a "team player," aying: -, I
the Bulls won the 1991 World Championship as . '
team, and they should share in the honors a team. :. , .
Jordan, who claimed he meant no political state­
ment by hi boycott of the trip, aid he just prefers .
his own time with family and golf.
Operation PUSH, the human rights ctivi t
group founded by Jes e Jackson and headquartered
in Chicago, joined the battle by condemning ports
writers in the city who jumped all over Jordan for
his absence. .". •
PUSH Pre ident Rev. Charles Williamson" .
reminded the media and the public that when the ' .
So ton Celtics won the NBAcrown, no Larry Byrd '
was in the Rose Garden for pre identl J p op-
portunities. And a mi fng Byrd brought no outcry' I '
of protest, Williamson said.
Meanwhile. it is Bush who i the 10 er, not being
able to cash in on the NBA' marketing"
phenomenon.
Jordan. who for an e timated $15 million an-",
nually, pump gym he, cereal, fast food, soft-r .: I
drinks, has been statistically tracked for his earning.
ability. Stock of Jordan endorsed products S08rs' r.
after he signs 'the marketing contract, it, was .
revealed last week by the New York Times.
Like PUSH, we say Jord r. had a right to not gOI
Grant had a right to speak out; and Bush hould be.' ,
ashamed for such cheap politicking.
And as the storm di down, the real truth is: Th
NBA's $500 fine on Grant for speaking up against.
Jordan dramatizes what a plantation system profe ... � 't •
sional sports has become.
And though Jordan doesn't use his prestige and.
popularity for Black causes, at least one Black
athlete had the nerve to show he is the equal of any
man.
Woodcox nd re • P k
01 Toum ent tu
.'