Nasty curse of decathletes claims Pappas

By TOM WEIR

USA TODAY

ATHENS, Greece - The USA's Tom Pappas limped off the track Tuesday, forced out of competition by an injured left foot and also by the Olympic decathlon curse.

The curse is the theme of the book ``Olympic Glory Denied ``by Frank Zarnowski. It chronicles the crushed aspirations of 11 decathletes who were ranked No. 1 in the world the year before the Games but never reached the Olympic starting line for track's most demanding event.

Pappas, the 2003 world champion, at least got to Athens but had to quit during the pole vault, the eighth of the decathlon's 10 events.

Pappas was in fifth place when he withdrew. He showed no obvious signs of trouble in Tuesday's first event, the 110-meter hurdles, where he placed ninth in 14.18 seconds. Then in the discus throw, he ranked seventh with a toss of 155 feet, 5 inches.

``It didn't bother me in the discus,'' Pappas said of the injury that was termed an acute strain by the U.S. Olympic Committee's medical staff.

``I think just sitting around for maybe an hour after the discus, I thought I might be in trouble,'' Pappas said. ``It really started to hurt. It took forever to try to warm it up a little bit. It was one of those things where it wasn't getting any better.''

When warm-ups began for the pole vault, Pappas couldn't sprint full speed down the runway. ``It happened halfway through my first run,'' Pappas said of the pain in his left arch.

Of the other ``cursed'' decathletes, the most notable was 1991 world champion Dan O'Brien. Along with fellow U.S. decathlete Dave Johnson, O'Brien was a co-star of Reebok's $25 million ``Dan and Dave'' ad campaign before the 1992 Olympics.

But O'Brien failed to clear a height in the pole vault at the U.S. Olympic trials and didn't make the team.

At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, O'Brien won gold, the only time any of the curse victims ever competed at a subsequent Games. O'Brien was 30 when he won his gold. Pappas turns 28 in September.