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By Newsweek Editors
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At the Olympic track-and-field trials In New Orleans last month, the other "world's greatest athlete," Jackie Joyner-Kersee, seemed to run into the ghost of championships past. Rounding the turn In the 200-meter, the world-record holder in 1988 Olympic heptathlon champ put her arms out as though she were protecting herself from a fall. She kept her footing-but it was at the same spot in the race where she strained her right hamstring at last year's World Championships in Tokyo, forcing her to leave the competition on a stretcher and in tears. Her husband and coach, Bob Kersee, said, "The ghost of Tokyo tapped her on the shoulder."
Jackie herself thinks she was tapped more by the blistering heat-not to mention the wrong shoes. But it was a ghost, at least Joyner-Kersee has found something that can keep up with her. It's lonely so far ahead of the pack. At New Orleans, she won the greuling seven-event competition handily with a total of 6,695 points, 462 ahead of her nearest rival. But it was her lowest score since 1985, leading people to whisper, "What's the matter with Jackie?"
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"Everything I do is a stat," Bob recalls his wife saying. "Unless I break a record In every event, someone says, 'What's wrong? Why didn't you make 7,200 points?'" It's hard not to expect great things whenever she competes. Joyner-Kersee became the first woman to break 7,000 points in the heptathalon in 1986 and set the world record of 7,291 in Seoul. In 1988, she set the Olympic record in the long jump-24 feet 3 1/2 inches.
In her spiffy new uniform, which "keeps everything in place," Joyner-Kersee Is looking for new stats. She wears two rings that Bob gave her on her 30th birthday. One with seven diamonds, the other with three. These stand for 7,500 points. For her, that's a possibility. For the rest of the field: they don't stand a ghost of a chance.
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